MAUDE  ADAMS 


A  BIOGRAPHY 


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MAUDE  ADAMS 

A  BIOGRAPHY 


By 

ADA  PATTERSON 

Author  of  "  By  the  Stage  Door."  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

MEYER  BROS.  &  CO. 

PUBLISHERS 


COPYRIGHT,    1907, 
BY 

MEYER  BROS.   &  Co. 


Maude  Adams 


HAT  winsome  Maude 
Adams,  kin  to  the  great  ones 
of  earth  by  the  common 
bond  of  an  exquisite  talent 
developed  to  the  uttermost,  is  by  ties 
of  blood  the  kinswoman  of  two  Presi- 
dents of  the  United  States,  is  a  fact  that 
she  has  modestly  hidden  but  which 
attested  and  authentic  records  of  gene- 
alogy prove. 

One  Joshua  Adams  was  the  cousin  and 
boyhood  chum  of  John  Quincy  Adams. 
Manhood's  stern  responsibilities  and 
obligations  separated  the  cousins.  John 
Quincy  Adams'  path  led  him  to  the 


M101834 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

Presidency  of  the  United  States.  Joshua 
:  Adam's-  rh^ed  .'to  Canada.  The  eldest 
sqn  o,f  Joshua  Adams  fell  in  with  a 
party  of  Mormon  missionaries,  and  love 
of  travel  and  adventure  led  him  to  fol- 
low them  from  Canada  to  Salt  Lake 
City.  Miss  Annie  Adams,  the  daughter 
of  this  emigrant  to  Utah,  made  her 
debut  on  the  stage  of  the  theatre  built 
by  Brigham  Young  and  which  still 
stands  in  the  quaint  capital  of  the 
Mormon  intermountain  dominion.  She 
became  Mrs.  James  Kiskadden.  When 
the  child  grew  to  the  estate  of  an  ac- 
tress she,  by  her  mother's  wish,  and  be- 
cause the  Kiskadden  family  had  the 
traditional  prejudice  against  the  theatre, 
caused  the  first  two  names  only  to  be 
printed  on  the  programmes.  The  name 
Kiskadden  was  dropped  except  for  purely 
business  purposes.  Should  those  who 
read  these  pages  ever  receive  a  cheque 
or  a  receipt  for  services  rendered  from 
2 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

the  most  popular  dramatic  star  in 
America  the  document  would  be  signed 
Maude  Adams  Kiskadden.  But  for 
professional  purposes,  since  she  reached 
the  years  of  free  choice,  she  has  con- 
tinued to  use  the  name  which  in  a  for- 
mer decade  her  mother  had  made  mem- 
orable in  the  theatrical  annals  of  the 
Pacific  Slope,  that  fine  old  New  England 
name  which  has  appeared  twice  on  the 
roster  of  the  Chief  Executives  of  these 
United  States. 

James  Kiskadden,  the  father  of  her  who 
is  widely  known  and  as  widely  loved  as 
Maude  Adams,  was  himself  of  an  ex- 
cellent old  Ohio  family,  a  few  scions  of 
which  still  reside  in  that  state.  He  was 
a  banker,  and  because  of  his  handsome 
face  and  magnetic  personality,  was  one 
of  the  most  popular  young  men  in  Utah. 
He  died  when  his  little  daughter  was 
seven  years  old.  Vaguely  but  affection- 
ately she  remembers  the  debonnair, 
3 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

handsome  young  father,  and  in  cabinet, 
under  lock  and  key,  keeps  as  sacred 
relics  the  few  souvenirs  that  remain  of 
him,  a  faded  photograph,  a  watch  fob  worn 
thin,  a  lock  of  hair,  thick  and  soft  and 
ashen  brown  like  her  own.  Calling  at  a 
friend's  apartment  she  saw  an  engraved 
copy  of  Hans  Makart's  "Diana's  Chase." 
"I  remember  that  picture,"  she  said 
with  the  wistful  tenderness  so  effective 
because  so  sincere  in  "The  Little  Min- 
ister" and  "Peter  Pan."  "It  was  my 
father's.  It  hung  over  his  desk  in  our 
home  in  Salt  Lake  City." 
Maude  Adams  was  born  November 
1 1  th,  1 872,  in  one  of  the  simple  cottages 
of  structure  peculiar  to  the  Zion  of  the 
Latter-Day  Saints.  It  was  an  unosten- 
tatious birthplace,  a  narrow,  two-story 
adobe  house,  with  a  lean-to  for  summer 
convenience  in  the  matter  of  kitchen 
and  laundry  details.  The  house  stands 
near  Liberty  Park.  At  the  time  the 
4 


Sarony 

PORTRAIT   OF   MAUDE   ADAMS   TAKEN   ABOUT  THE   TIME   SHE 
FIRST   CAME  TO   NEW   YORK 


•     •    •  •  I 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

cottage  was  regarded  as  a  country  resi- 
dence. Now  it  is  in  the  compact  portion 
of  the  city,  where  Seventh  East  street — 
which  means  that  it  is  the  seventh  street 
east  of  the  Mormon  Temple,  a  centre 
from  which  all  streets  begin  and  are 
relatively  named — intersects  Eighth 
South,  which  is  the  eighth  street  south 
of  the  temple  of  mysterious  rites.  On 
the  first  day  of  her  arrival,  when  in 
solemn  family  council,  at  which  her 
grandmother,  the  now  venerable  Mrs. 
Julia  Adams,  presided,  it  was  decided 
formally  that  the  small  pink  bundle  of 
humanity  resembled  her  mother  in  all 
her  physical  attributes,  and  her  father  in 
temperament  and  character.  It  was  also 
decided  that  her  name  should  be  Maude, 
and  at  once  with  grandmotherly  pre- 
rogative Mrs.  Julia  Adams  referred  to 
the  small  stranger  as  "  Maudie." 
As  "Maudie"  she  was  known  and  billed 
on  theatre  programmes  until,  by  virtue 
5 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

of  long  skirts  and  a  mass  of  brown  hair 
with  golden  glints  in  it  piled  high  on  her 
head,  she  insisted  upon  dropping  the 
now  superfluous  and  undignified  "i." 
Her  first  few  months  were  spent  in  the 
important,  though  seemingly  insignif- 
icant manner  of  infants.  She  played 
peek-a-boo  with  the  sunbeams  that  fell 
across  her  crib  in  the  same  delighted 
way  that  ordinary  babies  play  hide  and 
seek  with  solar  rays.  She  cried  very 
little,  but  when  she  did,  the  family  tra- 
ditions affirm,  she  cried  hard,  which, 
according  to  the  character  readings  of 
sage  mothers  and  nurses,  proved  that 
the  baby  would  achieve  a  quietly  de- 
termined character  before  she  reached 
her  grown  up  state.  The  same  fragility 
of  physical  makeup,  a  healthy  frailness, 
the  physician  called  it,  denoting  that 
though  her  frame  was  slight  the  consti- 
tution was  keyed  to  health,  characterized 
her  babyhood  as  her  maturity.  She  was 
6 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

gentle,  and  to  those  she  knew  well, 
affectionate,  as  now.  She  was  shy  with 
other  babies,  looking  upon  them  with 
mild-eyed  wonder  that  there  was  any 
human  specimen  so  small  as  this,  and 
found  more  pleasure  in  the  companion- 
ship of  her  elders. 

She  loved  demonstratively  her  mother, 
whom  she  saw  less  often  than  she  would 
have  liked,  for  Mrs.  Kiskadden  resumed 
her  playing  in  the  stock  company  of  the 
Brigham  Young  Theatre  soon  after  the 
little  one's  birth.  Her  grandmother 
was  her  playmate,  enjoyed  and  admon- 
ished in  turn.  Her  handsome  young 
father  was  the  special  object  of  the  baby's 
worship.  They  were  rare  chums.  Be- 
side the  old-fashioned  fireplace  in  the 
old  adobe  house  near  the  park  the 
young  man  sat  on  winter  evenings  with 
the  wee  baby  in  his  arms.  By  her 
command  he  talked  to  her  or  sang  to 
her,  but  quite  as  often  they  sat  silent, 
7 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

looking  into  each  other's  eyes,  smiling 
often  at  each  other  as  do  those  who 
understand.  Visitors  to  the  Adams 
home  said  the  mental  communion  be- 
tween the  two  was  perfect.  They  said 
it  was  because  Love  was  the  interpreter 
of  their  unspoken  thoughts. 
Surrounded  by  the  loving  care  of  this 
trio  whom  she  loved,  her  rare  glimpses 
of  the  world  being  from  the  high  old- 
fashioned  windows,  and  between  the 
half-open  doors  of  her  home,  or  from 
her  perambulator,  from  which  she  gazed 
more  interestedly  at  trees  and  flowers, 
and  skipping  squirrels,  and  far  off  clouds, 
than  at  the  persons  who  peeped  into  the 
carriage  and  said  "that's  Annie  Adams' 
baby,"  the  first  months  of  her  baby- 
hood passed  as  pleasantly  as  baby  could 
wish.  She  had  dolls  but  preferred  the 
society  of  a  brindle  dog  that  came  foot- 
sore to  the  house  to  beg  and  stayed 
because  the  fair-haired,  blue-eyed  baby, 
8 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

with  beseeching  arms  about  his  neck, 
begged  him  to  remain. 
"But  he's  only  a  tramp  dog,"  remon- 
strated her  grandmother.  "I  will  get 
you  a  nice,  clean  dog.'* 
"Love  tramp  dog,"  protested  the  baby, 
preparing  to  "cry  hard."  The  baby 
prevailed.  The  dog  was  a  guest  of  the 
household  until  he  died  of  old  age. 
Maudie  Adams,  baby,  was  as  tender  to 
animals  as  is  Maude  Adams,  woman. 
She  whom  they  called  Maudie  spent 
her  life  uneventfully,  her  paths  being 
those  of  placid  pleasantness,  until  at 
eight  months  there  occurred  a  develop- 
ment which  made  her  the  show  baby  of 
the  neighborhood,  and  infant  wonder 
of  all  Salt  Lake  City. 
A  friend  of  the  family  called  one  eve- 
ning bringing  the  baby  a  gift,  a  wonder- 
ful box  of  red  and  blue  alphabet  blocks. 
He  played  house  building  with  her  on 
a  rug  before  the  fire,  telling  her  the 
9 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

names  of  the  letters  on  each  block  as 
the  building  went  forward.  Before  he 
left  he  found,  to  his  amazement,  that 
the  baby  had  learned  her  letters  in  that 
single  play  lesson.  And  she  never  for- 
got them.  Before  she  was  a  year  old 
the  primer  was  superfluous.  She  had 
taught  herself  to  read. 
At  the  age  of  nine  months,  and  unex- 
pectedly, little  Maudie  Adams  made 
her  first  appearance  on  the  stage.  Mrs. 
Annie  Adams,  as  a  member  of  the  Salt 
Lake  City  stock  company,  made  up  of 
local  talent  and  known  as  the  Home 
Dramatic  Company,  was  supporting  a 
visiting  star  in  a  play  "  The  Cottage 
Girl."  The  melodrama  was  followed 
by  a  farce  entitled  "The  Lost  Child." 
The  cast  of  the  farce  was  a  small  one 
and  Mrs.  Adams,  having  no  part  in  it, 
remained  to  see  the  new  piece.  The 
farce  hinged  upon  a  child's  identity, 
and  the  infant  was  a  prominent  figure 
10 


Saronv 


AS    NELL    IN    "THE    LOST    PARADISE' 
(Proctor's  23d  St.  Theatre,  1891) 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

in  it,  and  had  to  be  brought  on  and  off 
several  times.  Having  been  rushed  on 
and  off  the  stage  until  it  was  nearly 
breathless,  the  little  one  was  finally 
brought  into  the  room  by  a  waiter  who 
set  it  on  the  table  before  its  father's 
wondering  eyes.  The  infant  who  was 
utilized  for  the  part  performed  its 
thinking  role  placidly  enough  in  the 
several  rushes  on  and  off  the  stage. 
Mrs.  Adams,  having  assured  herself 
that  the  nurse  and  Maudie  were  waiting 
for  her  at  the  stage  door,  and  had  come 
to  take  her  home  as  usual,  lingered  in 
the  wings  to  see  the  rest  of  the  play. 
A  shriek,  infantile  and  pronounced  and 
uncompromising,  cut  the  air.  The 
women  who  were  not  engaged  in  the 
play  ran  to  the  quarter  whence  came 
the  noise.  The  mother  of  the  infant 
actor  was  nearly  distracted. 
"He's  mad,"  she  said.  "There's 
nothing  the  matter  with  his  clothes  nor 
ii 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

with  him.  It's  just  temper.  He  don't 
want  to  act  any  more.  When  he 
commences  like  that  he  hollers  for  an 
hour." 

The  farce  was  moving  forward  in  the 
double-quick  time  of  farces.  There 
remained  but  three  minutes  before  the 
child  should  be  carried  before  the  as- 
tounded father.  The  manager  was  in 
the  throes  of  despair.  Looking  hope- 
lessly about,  he  glanced  past  Mrs. 
Adams  who  stood  beside  the  call  board, 
and  caught  a  glimpse  of  an  infant 
smiling  up  into  her  nurse's  face  from 
the  cozy  pink  depths  of  a  perambulator. 
With  a  run  and  slide  he  crossed  the 
hall,  snatched  the  baby  out  of  her  car- 
riage, ran  back  with  her  to  where  the 
waiter  stood  with  useless  platter  in  a 
limp  hand,  thrust  the  baby  upon  the 
platter  and  the  platter  into  the  waiter's 
hands.  A  second  later  the  audience 
shouted  its  delight.  The  laughs  the 
12 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

distraught  stage  manager  had  worked 
for  were  heard,  but  there  were  others. 
Why  this  added  volume  of  laughter? 
The  manager  of  the  house  came  back 
to  explain. 

"  The  other  baby  was  two  months  old. 
This  one  is  at  least  nine.  It's  grown 
twenty  pounds  in  five  minutes.  Whose 
baby  is  it?" 

"  Don't  know,"  was  the  reply.  "  Just 
a  baby  I  saw  hanging  around." 
The  little  one,  sitting  upon  the  platter, 
heard  the  roar  of  laughter.  It  was  a 
cheerful  sound.  She  smiled  at  it.  As 
it  continued  she  crawled  forward  and 
with  hands  resting  upon  the  platter 
blinked  and  cooed  at  the  vague  mass  in 
front.  At  which  the  audience  laughed 
amid  "Bravos."  Her  first  appearance 
upon  any  stage  was,  therefore,  auspicious. 
Notwithstanding  her  undeniable  hit  on 
this  occasion  Maudie  Adams  went  back 
to  private  life  after  her  debut.  She  re- 
13 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

sumed  her  sunbeam  chasing,  her  block- 
house building,  her  silent  smiling  com- 
munion with  c fader*  and  her  caresses  of 
the  brindle  dog,  and  was  content.  She 
lived  thus  until,  when  she  was  four 
years  old,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Kiskadden 
removed  to  San  Francisco,  the  wife 
continuing  on  the  stage.  While  she 
was  playing  with  J.  K.  Emmet  in 
"  Fritz  in  Ireland,"  the  star  became 
dissatisfied  with  the  little  girl  who  was 
playing  the  child's  role.  He  had 
noticed  the  bright-faced  little  one 
who  sometimes  came  to  the  stage 
door  with  her  mother  and  had  inquired 
her  name. 

"  Why  don't  you  let  Maudie  play  this 
part?"  he  asked  while  voicing  his  com- 
plaints of  the  wooden  bit  of  humanity 
who  walked  through  it. 
"  I  will  ask  her  father,"  responded  Mrs. 
Kiskadden.     That  night  at  dinner  she 
kept  her  promise  to  the  manager. 
14 


Sarony 


AS    NELL   IN    "THE   LOST   PARADISE" 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

"  Mr.  Emmet  would  like  Maudie  to 
try  the  child's  part/'  she  said.  "What 
do  you  think  about  it  ? " 
"  Certainly  not.  I  don't  want  the  child 
to  go  on  the  stage  and  make  a  fool  of 
herself." 

The  four-year-old  who  had  been  per- 
mitted to  sit  at  the  table  that  night  laid 
down  her  knife  and  fork  with  precision 
and  looked  gravely  across  at  her  father. 
"Fader,"  she  said,  "I  won't  make  a 
fool  of  myself." 

Her  father  laughed  and  consented. 
The  child  studied  her  lines  avidly  and 
learned  them  in  one  day.  She  played 
the  part  to  her  own  and  her  mother's 
and  Mr.  Emmet's  satisfaction.  The 
only  lapse  from  professional  gravity  and 
decorum  was  when,  having  been  tied 
to  a  water-wheel  and  told  that  she  must 
scream  at  a  particular  moment,  she 
injected  a  speech  not  set  down  in  her 
part. 

15 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

"  Mamma,"  she  asked,  "  must  I  scweam 
now?" 

She  finished  the  season  with  Mr. 
Emmet,  then  went  back  to  domestic 
existence,  somewhat  against  her  will. 
When  she  was  six  years  old  she  re- 
appeared upon  the  stage,  this  time  as 
the  child  in  "The  Celebrated  Case/' 
Miss  Belle  Douglass,  an  actress  who 
played  a  prominent  role  in  the  piece, 
studied  the  child's  part  so  that  she 
might  prompt  her.  In  a  scene  in  which 
she  knelt  beside  the  little  girl  she  tried 
to  prompt  her  in  whispers,  but  to  her 
amazement  the  child  made  the  pre- 
cocious reply : 

"  I  know  my  part  and  yours  too.  Mind 
your  own  lines."  To  emphasize  her 
displeasure  the  wee  one  pinched  her 
mentor's  ears. 

That  "little   pitchers   have    big    ears" 

was   proven    in    connection    with    tiny 

Miss  Adams'  connection  with  the  play. 

16 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

While  the  company  was  rehearsing  she 
overheard  her  mother  say  to  the  stage 
manager: 

"I  am  awfully  anxious  about  Maudie's 
performance  to-night.  Mr.  Leman  is  so 
fishy  in  his  lines  that  I  am  afraid  he 
will  confuse  her." 

The  actress  whose  performance  was  at 
that  moment  in  doubt  turned  from  the 
window  sill  where  she  was  teaching  a 
dilapidated  rag  doll  to  dance. 
"Don't  be  afraid,  mother.  I  know 
Mr.  Leman's  lines  better  than  he  knows 
them  himself." 

The  second  act  of  the  play,  one  of 
tragic  intensity,  centers  upon  the  child. 
Mr.  Leman  as  the  Colonel  propounded 
lawyer-like  questions  to  the  little  one, 
and  upon  her  answers  depended  the 
life  or  death  of  her  father.  There  was 
a  pause  before  the  category  began.  The 
house  was  tense  with  suspense  and  ex- 
pectancy. Not  a  word  came.  The 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

child,  looking  into  the  wings,  saw  Miss 
Belle  Douglass  looking  aghast. 
"  O,  Auntie  Belle,"  cried  the  child  com- 
miseratingly,  "poor  Mr.  Leman  doesn't 
know  a  single  line  of  his  part.'* 
A  statement  which  her  shrill  inter- 
polation made  almost  true.  For  it  was 
difficult  for  the  fine  old  actor,  Walter 
Leman,  to  get  himself  together  after 
that,  and  most  of  his  lines  came  stagger- 
ingly in  quivering  voice,  while  he  bent 
unkind  glances  upon  the  child.  The 
child's  replies  were  always  correct,  but 
maddeningly  interlarded  with  observa- 
tions to  "Auntie  Belle":  "  I  told  you 
so."  "  There  he  goes  again." 
Featured  and  billed  now  as  "  Little 
Maudie  Adams"  the  small  actress  next 
appeared  with  J.  B.  Murphy  in  "  Out 
to  Nurse."  Again  maternal  solicitude 
was  excited  lest  the  child  forget  her 
lines.  Mrs.  Adams  haunted  the  wings 
and  prompted  her  daughter  in  whispers, 
18 


Sarony 


PRIVATE    PORTRAIT   TAKEN    ABOUT    1890 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

to  which  the  little  one  made  irritated 
reply: 

"  Mamma,  I  do  know  my  part.  I  wish 
you  would  please  go  away  and  let  me 
alone."  To  punish  her  Mrs.  Adams 
went  upstairs  to  her  dressing  room, 
where  five  minutes  later  a  member  of 
the  company  joined  her. 
"I  am  so  afraid  Maudie  will  go  up  in 
her  lines,"  fretted  Mrs.  Adams. 
"What's  that  awful  noise  about?" 
"Go  up  in  her  lines?"  returned  the 
other.  "That  noise  is  the  audience 
applauding  your  daughter." 
Thereafter  Mrs.  Adams  never  feared 
that  her  daughter  would  not  be  letter 
perfect.  Before  she  was  seven  years 
old  the  star  began  to  manifest  a  strong 
tendency  toward  realism.  In  a  scene 
of  "  Out  to  Nurse,"  she  was  sent  out 
of  the  room  to  bring  a  pitcher  of  beer. 
At  first  the  property  man  handed  her  a 
pitcher  filled  with  water.  After  a  few 
19 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

performances  of  the  part  she  went  to 
the  star  and  said:  "Mr.  Murphy,  I 
bring  in  the  pitcher  and  set  it  before 
you  and  say,  ( Here's  the  beer/  when  it 
isn't  beer,  only  water.  I  think  it  ought 
to  be  beer.  I  don't  want  to  carry  in 
water  and  say  its  beer  when  it  isn't." 
"Maybe  ye're  right,  young  one.  I 
think  we'll  make  it  beer,  anyway." 
And  always  after  that  the  property  man 
handed  the  child  a  pitcher  of  odorous, 
foaming  stuff  instead  of  limpid,  clear, 
colorless  liquid,  and  the  actors,  knowing 
how  the  reform  had  been  wrought, 
always  toasted  the  child  slyly  as  they 
drank.  Again  the  tendency  to  natural- 
ism manifested  itself  when  she  played  a 
boy's  part  in  "The  Streets  of  New 
York."  She  watched  with  deep  interest 
her  mother's  fashioning  of  a  pair  of 
trousers  for  her  to  wear  at  her  debut. 
"  Make  a  rip  here,  Mamma,"  she  said, 
drawing  her  finger  along  a  side  seam, 
20 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

"and  let  the  red  flannel  poke  out. 
That's  the  way  I've  seen  little  boys' 
trousers  look." 

A  few  years  later  the  trousers  of  which 
she  had  once  been  so  proud  became 
odious  to  her.  In  "  Little  Jack  Shep- 
pard"  she  was  cast  for  one  of  the  Little 
Boy  Blues.  Beholding  the  tight  blue 
knickerbockers  in  which  she  was  to 
appear,  she  burst  into  tears. 
"O,  Mr.  Osborne,"  she  sobbed,  "I 
really  can't  wear  those  things." 
"All  right,  dear,"  said  George  Osborne, 
patting  her  head.  "You  needn't  wear 
them.  We'll  give  you  a  skirt."  As 
that  anomaly,  a  Boy  Blue  in  a  short 
skirt,  she  appeared,  and  was  happy. 
Very  early  in  her  youthful  career  wee 
Miss  Adams  comprehended  dimly  the 
value  of  the  prefix  "Miss"  to  a  the- 
atrical name.  Overhearing  a  member 
of  the  company  say  that  someone  had 
mistaken  the  little  girl  for  Mrs.  Adams' 
21 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

sister,  the  child  whispered  to  her  mother, 
"  Mamma,  don't  you  think  that  I  had 
better  call  you  Annie?" 
Her   dramatic   sense   developed   early. 
When  she  was  seven  years  old  and  play- 
ing in  "The  Octoroon"  she  played  the 
part  of  a  pickaninny. 
"Move  about  the  stage  quickly  while 
you  talk,"  said  the  stage  manager. 
"  It  would  be  better  for  me  to  be  doing 
something,"  she   said.      "Til   use   my 
new  jumping  rope." 
Thus  it  was  by  her  own  suggestion  that 
the  smallest  of  the  pickaninnies  intro- 
duced the  "new  business"  of  rope  jump- 
ing, "business"  that  "went  well"  with 
the  audience. 

The  strange  reversion  of  realities  that 
take  place  when  a  company  is  cast  for  a 
play  was  exemplified  in  "Harbour 
Lights,"  when  Mrs.  Annie  Adams  and 
Miss  Ethel  Brandon  were  cast  for  young, 
frivolous  girls,  and  their  daughters, 
22 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

Maude  Adams  and  Polly  Brandon,  each 
aged  about  eleven,  played  the  parts  of 
old  crones.  The  little  creatures  were 
made  up  to  look  withered  and  toothless 
and  bent  nearly  double  under  the  weight 
of  their  assumed  years. 
From  the  time  she  played  the  child's 
part  in  "Fritz'1  at  four  years  of  age 
Maudie  Adams  was  never  satisfied  un- 
less she  was  traveling  and  playing  with 
her  mother.  Again  and  again  Mrs. 
Adams  sent  her  daughter  back  to  the 
old  home  and  to  her  grandmother  in 
Salt  Lake  City,  but  there  came  from 
school  and  from  home  the  report: 
"  Maudie  is  good  and  learns  fast,  but 
she  frets  so  much  for  you  and  the  life 
of  the  stage  that  we  are  afraid  she  may 
be  ill." 

Again  and  again,  especially  after  the 
death  of  Mr.  Kiskadden,  Mrs.  Adams 
reluctantly  consented  to  her  little 
daughter's  "taking  one  more  engage- 
23 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

ment,  but  this  must  really  be  the  last 
before  she  is  graduated." 
One  of  these  reluctant  consents  was 
given  to  her  appearance  in  "Chums," 
which  James  A.  Herne  played  and 
David  Belasco  directed  in  the  Baldwin 
Theatre  in  San  Francisco.  Mr.  Belasco 
took  the  small,  spindle-legged,  pigtailed 
child  with  the  serious  eyes  and  the 
magnetic  smile  on  his  knees  and  taught 
her  the  part  of  Chrystal,  a  part  that  he 
says  she  amazingly  vitalized. 
Sometimes  during  the  little  girl's  en- 
forced banishment  from  the  boards  her 
mother  came  home  for  a  vacation. 
These  were  seasons  of  delirious  delight 
for  the  child.  She  clung  to  her  mother 
incessantly,  as  though  did  she  once 
relinquish  the  grasp  of  her  thin,  strong 
arms,  her  plump,  pretty  little  mother 
would  be  whisked  away  from  her  on  the 
wings  of  the  genius  of  Thespis  land. 
Cuddled  in  her  mother's  arms,  supreme- 
24 


Sarony 


PRIVATE    PORTRAIT   TAKEN    ABOUT   1891 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

ly  happy,  the  child  made  her  replies  to 
the  catechism  of  maternal  love. 
"Whom  do  you  love?"  asked  her 
mother. 
"Oo,  oo." 

"Whom   do   you   love  best  in  the 
world?" 
"Oo,  oo." 

Seeing  her  grandmother  sitting  apart 
from  the  group,  and  fearing  to  wound 
her,  she  said  in  a  loud  voice,  sure  to 
reach  the  elder  ears,  "and  dramma." 
One  remarkable  predilection  of  the 
Maude  Adams  not  yet  emerged  from 
the  chrysalis  of  Maudie  was  her  taste 
for  licorice  root.  Of  too  dainty  habit 
to  eat  the  smeary  black  confection  in  its 
finished  form,  she  preferred  the  root 
itself,  which  she  could  chew  with  com- 
parative neatness,  extracting  the  flavor 
while  escaping  the  penalty  of  soiled  lips 
and  handkerchief.  On  her  way  to 
school  she  passed  a  wholesale  drug 
25 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

house  where  the  roots  could  be  secured. 
Every  morning  she  called  at  the  drug 
store  and  asked  for  and  received  two 
pieces  of  licorice  root  from  the  hands  of 
the  head  of  the  firm.  For  years  this 
custom  was  invariable.  Entered  Maudie 
Adams  with  school  books  under  her 
arm  and  an  expectant  smile  on  lips  and 
in  eyes.  Arose  the  bulky  form  of  the 
head  of  the  house,  who  produced  the 
allotted  two  pieces  of  licorice  root  and 
bestowed  them,  with  a  bow,  upon  Mrs. 
Annie  Adams'  daughter.  Smiled 
Maudie  Adams  and  departed.  When 
after  a  long  absence  the  little  girl,  now 
Maude  Adams,  the  most  popular  of 
American  stars,  revisited  her  old  home, 
the  wholesale  druggist  sent  her  two 
pieces  of  licorice  root  with  his  card  and 
compliments.  From  New  York  she 
sent  him  a  silver  souvenir,  reproducing 
the  licorice  roots,  and  tied  with  a  pink 
ribbon.  "Thank  you.  Maude 
26 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

Adams,"  was  written  on  the  accom- 
panying card. 

Tenderly  Maude  Adams  recalls  all  the 
incidents  of  life  in  the  quaint  town  in 
which  she  was  born.  A  resident  of 
that  city,  who  knew  her  but  slightly, 
had  asked  a  favor  and  received  it  from 
her. 

"I  shall  never  forget  your  kindness," 
said  the  recipient  of  the  favor. 
"It  was  not  kindness.  It  was  Salt 
Lakeness,"  returned  Miss  Adams. 
For  two  years,  between  the  ages  of 
twelve  and  fourteen,  Maudie  Adams 
found  her  mother  inexorable.  She  must 
remain  in  school  for  two  years  at  least, 
and  finding  her  protests  unavailing,  the 
girl  adapted  herself  so  well  to  the  en- 
vironment of  the  Collegiate  Institute, 
the  Presbyterian  school  in  Salt  Lake 
City,  that  she  became  the  favorite  and, 
it  was  generally  admitted,  the  brightest 
pupil  in  the  school.  In  elocution  she 
27 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

always  received  the  hundred-mark  of 
perfection,  and  pupils  of  that  school  and 
time,  now  grown  and  married,  and  in 
many  instances  parents,  recall  that  on 
declamation  day  one  girl  with  bright 
eyes  and  a  sweet  smile  always  accom- 
panied her  recitations  by  gestures  and 
swift  changes  of  facial  expression  that 
carried  conviction  of  the  sentiment, 
whatever  it  might  be  that  she  chose  to 
impress.  They  recall  one  recitation  in 
which  she  impersonated  a  spinster  read- 
ing her  old  love  letters  that  was  a  tri- 
umph of  mimicry,  a  superb  mingling 
of  the  humor  and  pathos  so  curiously 
blended  in  the  situation. 
When  the  girl  was  nearly  fourteen  Mrs. 
Adams  returned  to  Salt  Lake  City  to 
visit  her  daughter.  She  was  astonished 
at  the  flower-like  growth  of  the  girl. 
"Why  Maudie,"  she  cried  almost  re- 
proachfully, "we  cannot  realize  your 
ambition ! " 

28 


Sarony 


AS    SUZANNE   IN    "THE    MASKED    BALL" 
(Palmer's  Theatre,  1892) 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

"What  ambition,  dear  mother?" 
"You  always  said  'when  I  am  tall 
enough  to  rest  my  head  upon  your 
shoulder  we  are  going  to  play  "The 
Two  Orphans,"  you  Adrienne  and  I 
Louise/  Now  you  are  as  tall  as  I  am." 
"Quite  tall  enough  and  old  enough  to 
leave  school,"  pleaded  her  daughter. 
And  the  mother,  reflecting  upon  the 
child's  quick  growth  and  her  unconquer- 
able love  for  the  stage,  listened  yield- 
ingly to  her  arguments. 
"I  shall  not  need  any  more  education 
unless  I  become  a  teacher  or  a  literary 
woman,"  urged  the  daughter,  "and  I 
don't  want  to  be  either."  The  citadel 
of  the  opposition  to  her  leaving  school 
life  being  won,  little  Miss  Adams  cared 
nothing  for  the  outposts.  One  of  these 
was  the  principal  of  the  school,  a  woman 
of  saint-like  character,  who  was  exceed- 
ingly fond  of  her  young  pupil. 
"  Don't  take  Maudie  from  school,"  she 
29 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

besought  the  mother.  "  Leave  her  with 
us  for  a  few  years  and  we  will  make  her 
a  teacher  of  elocution  in  the  school. 
She  will  earn  a  salary  of  two  thousand 
dollars  a  year."  Outwardly  making 
courteous  reply,  Mrs.  Adams  smiled  in- 
wardly. "If  Maude  amounts  to  any- 
thing on  the  stage  she  will  earn  more 
than  that.  If  not  I  may  send  her  back." 
Soon  afterward  Maude  Adams  left  Salt 
Lake  City  with  her  mother.  Seeing  her 
look  wistfully  out  of  the  car  window  at  the 
mountain-encircled  city  receding  in  the 
distance  the  mother  asked  the  daughter 
whether  she  was  already  homesick. 
"  I  love  Salt  Lake  City,  but  I  love  you 
and  the  life  of  work  before  me  still 
better." 

It  was  a  life  of  hard  work  to  which  her 
mother  guided  her.  It  led  within  a 
year  to  New  York,  that  Mecca  of  the  am- 
bitious American  actor,  that  land  which 
when  conquered  is  all  smiles  and  sun- 
30 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

shine  and  surpassing  fairness,  but  that 
until  won  is  a  wilderness  of  hard  paths 
and  stern  faces  and  Arctic  cold. 
There  followed  all  the  thorns  in  the 
path  of  the  strange  seeker  after  success 
in  Thespis  land  in  New  York.  There 
were  the  frequent  and  not  too  warmly 
welcome  calls  upon  managers  and  agents. 
There  were  lodgings  in  an  unfashion- 
able and  not  too  comfortable  region 
down  town  near  Union  Square  where 
car  fare  from  their  humble  rooms  to 
offices  of  mighty  managers  and  difficult 
agents  might  be  saved.  There  were 
discouragement  and  tears.  But  it  was 
agreed  by  the  brave  two  that  they  were 
never  to  yield  to  "blues"  at  the  same 
time.  When  the  mother  was  despond- 
ent the  daughter  must  be  cheerful. 
When  the  daughter  was  overwhelmed 
in  the  sea  of  difficulties  the  mother 
must  draw  her  out  to  the  rock  of  safety 
and  confidence. 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

And  there  was  confidence  of  the  pair  in 
themselves  and  in  each  other.  Mrs. 
Adams  had  had  a  general  experience 
of  many  years.  The  child  had  long  ago 
worn  off  the  awkwardness  of  unaccus- 
tomedness  upon  the  stage.  She  had 
studied  music  and  could  sing.  She 
read  well.  She  could  dance.  In  the 
flush  of  her  first  success,  before  her 
present  manager  had  interdicted  inter- 
views, the  girl  chatted  freely  to  the 
press.  In  one  of  those  early  and  now 
forbidden  and  forgotten  interviews  she 
tells  how  she  learned  dancing. 
"When  I  left  school  a  little  before  I 
was  fourteen  I  went  into  the  ballet." 
"Into  the  ballet?" 

"Yes.  I  was  there  six  months  and  in 
that  time  I  learned  a  great  deal  to  fit 
me  for  my  present  position.  It  is  a 
great  school  for  the  actress." 
Sufficient  preparation  is  more  than  half 
the  battle.  The  rest  is  steadiness  of 
32 


Byron 


AS    DORA   IX    "CHRISTOPHER   JR. 
(Empire  Theatre,  1895) 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

purpose  mingled  with  the  power  to  wait. 
Miss  Adams,  reinforced  by  her  mother, 
had  both  of  these,  and  seeing  the  need 
of  them,  cultivated  them  yet  more.  The 
ultimate  result  was  an  engagement  for 
both  in  Duncan  Harrison's  "The 
Paymaster."  Maudie  Adams,  at  last 
evolved  to  the  dignity  of  Miss  Maude 
Adams  on  the  bill,  played  a  leading 
juvenile  role.  She  caused  a  great  sensa- 
tion by  plunging  into  a  tank  of  water 
and  being  rescued  by  the  hero. 
She  developed  from  this  sensational 
"business"  a  cold  that  alarmed  her 
vigilant  mother.  Mrs.  Adams  begged 
Mr.  Harrison  to  excuse  her  daughter 
from  the  scene.  Mr.  Harrison  de- 
murred. It  was  one  of  the  biggest 
scenes  in  his  piece.  He  could  not  sac- 
rifice it  even  for  friends  so  esteemed  as 
Miss  Adams  and  her  mother.  Mrs. 
Adams  devised  an  expedient.  So 
cleverly  was  it  devised  and  executed 
33 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

that  no  one  except  the  manager,  the 
protesting  daughter  and  herself  knew  it 
— no  one,  that  is,  except  a  small,  dark 
man  with  sphinx-like  features,  who  sat 
in  front  one  night  and  watched  the  play 
with  all  the  discriminating  vision  of  one 
who  had  produced  it.  When  the  figure 
jumped  into  the  tank  and,  dripping,  was 
dragged  from  it  by  the  panting  hero  of 
the  play,  although  the  figure  flitted 
out  immediately  to  the  wings,  the  sphinx- 
featured  watcher  smiled.  Later  when  he 
felicitated  mother  and  daughter  upon 
their  debut  upon  a  New  York  stage  he 
exposed  the  expedient.  The  daughter's 
countenance  was  rueful. 
"1  didn't  want  her  to,"  she  said  half 
in  tears. 

"  Yes,  it  was  I  who  jumped  into  the 
tank,"  said  the  mother.  "  Do  you  sup- 
pose I  would  let  Maudie  take  her  death 
of  cold  in  that  freezing  water?"  she 
added  to  David  Belasco. 
34 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

There  sat  in  the  audience  the  same 
night,  although  quite  unconscious  of 
the  device,  another  great  manager. 
He  perceived  the  natural  note  and  ex- 
uberant youth  in  the  juvenile  leading 
woman.  "I've  seen  her  before,"  he 
said  to  himself,  exploring  the  hazy  re- 
cesses of  crowded  memory.  "  Yes,  she 
was  playing  a  child's  part  at  the  New- 
market Theatre  in  Portland,  Oregon, 
when  I  was  traveling  with  a  Wallack 
play.  She  was  a  child  then.  'Little 
Maudie  Adams'  she  was  billed.  Yes,  I 
remember."  He  recalled  a  later  picture 
of  her  in  his  mental  album.  She  had 
called  at  his  office  with  her  mother. 
"Yes.  I  had  nothing  for  her.  I  re- 
member them  now." 
"I  have  often  thought  of  the  time  I 
took  Maudie  to  Mr.  Frohman  to  ask 
for  an  engagement,"  said  Mrs.  Adams 
of  those  early  New  York  days  antedat- 
ing the  success  of  "The  Paymaster." 
35 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

"Ah,  those  were  disappointing  days, 
days  of  impatient  waiting,  days  of  doubt 
and  anxiety,  days  of  hard  work  and 
much  suffering!  Mr.  Frohman  had 
nothing  for  us  to  do,  although  he  asked 
us  to  call  again.  However,  after  cThe 
Paymaster*  and  another  visit  or  two, 
Mr.  Frohman  did  find  an  opening  for 
her.  Indeed,  he  sent  for  us." 
While  playing  the  part  of  Moyna 
Sullivan  in  "The  Paymaster,"  Maude 
Adams'  bent  toward  naturalism  received 
no  melodramatic  warp.  Rather  than 
use  the  artificial  flowers  in  the  play,  she 
paid  out  of  her  then  meagre  purse  for 
the  florist's  best  roses  to  use  in  the 
scene.  It  was  the  sacrifice  of  her  per- 
sonal comfort  upon  the  altar  of  her 
ambitions.  For  there  were  no  carriages 
to  the  theatre  in  those  days  of  a  be- 
ginning career.  There  was  not  even 
the  democratic  aid  of  the  street  car. 
Trudging  across  Union  Square  in  a 
36 


Byron,  X.  V. 

AS    LADY    BABBIE    IX    "THE    LITTLE    MINISTER" 
(Empire  Theatre,  1897) 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

storm  one  night  Maude  Adams'  mother 
stopped  and,  placing  her  hands  on  the 
girl's  slight  shoulders,  said:  "Maude, 
do  go  home.  You  have  coughed  four 
times  while  we  walked  a  block  and  a 
half." 

"No,  mamma,  no.  I  am  quite  well." 
"  Then  let  us  take  a  car.  This  is  dread- 
ful." 

The  star  of  the  future  drew  herself  up 
and  looked  at  her  mother  with  steady 
eyes." 

"Please  don't  talk  of  such  a  thing, 
mother.  I  am  merely  accustoming  my- 
self to  the  vicissitudes  of  an  actor's 
life." 

When  "The  Paymaster"  closed  its  run 
at  the  Star  Theatre  and  set  forth  upon 
its  journey  in  that  vague  land  of  dis- 
comfort called  "the  Road,"  Miss  Adams 
and  her  mother  remained  behind. 
Virginia  Harned  (Mrs.  E.  H.  Sothern) 
had  interested  her  husband  in  the  young 
37 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

girl  who  had  been  her  friend.  Of  this 
period  in  her  career  Miss  Adams  said 
in  one  of  those  now  ignored  interviews: 
"The  stage  was  not  beckoning  me  in 
those  days.  Too  young  for  mature 
parts,  too  old  for  child  parts,  I  was  a 
strange,  unattractive,  unclassified  crea- 
ture. Mrs.  Sothern,  who  had  played 
child  parts  with  me,  interested  her  hus- 
band in  me  after  awhile.  He  invited 
me  to  dine  with  them  at  a  restaurant 
once  and  I  am  sure  that  I  disgusted  him 
by  my  bashfulness  and  awkwardness. 
I  never  spoke  a  word  through  the 
whole  dinner,  I  was  so  painfully  diffi- 
dent. But  his  wife's  influence  prevailed 
and  he  afterwards  helped  me." 
She  joined  the  Sothern  company^play- 
ing  Louisa  in  "  The  Highest  Bidder," 
and  Jessie  Dean  in  "  Lord  Chumley." 
Opportunity  for  the  display  of  her  win- 
some personality  did  not  come,  how- 
ever, until  Charles  Hoyt  engaged  her 

38 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

to  create  the  role  of  Dot  Bradbury,  the 
young  school  teacher  in  "The  Mid- 
night Bell." 

That  production  was  the  line  of  de- 
markation  between  the  known  and  the 
unknown  for  Maude  Adams.  To  her 
in  "The  Paymaster,"  and  in  the  small 
parts  in  the  Sothern  companies,  the  met- 
ropolitan memory  harks  not  back.  Only 
a  few  experts  in  the  watch-tower,  sweep- 
ing their  glasses  upon  the  future  of  the 
drama,  had  fixed  their  glasses  and  their 
memories  upon  her.  But  from  her 
debut  in  "The  Midnight  Bell"  the 
lay  mind  embraced  her  henceforth  in 
the  arms  of  memory.  The  critics  of 
that  time  made  little  mention  of  her, 
some  of  them  none  at  all,  but  the  pub- 
lic, which  is  perhaps  the  most  discern- 
ing of  the  critics,  began  to  say,  "There's 
a  charming  little  girl  in  Hoyt's  new 
play.  I  think  her  name  is  Adams,  or 
something  like  that.  She's  so  different." 
39 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

Charles  Hoyt,  the  manager,  had  his 
finger  ever  upon  the  pulse  of  the  pub- 
lic. He  discovered  that  its  beats  spelt 
popularity  for  his  obscure  little  "find." 
When  "The  Midnight  Bell"  termi- 
nated its  run  in  New  York  he  offered 
her  a  five  years'  contract  to  play  juvenile 
comedy  at  practically  her  own  terms. 
It  was  the  point  of  the  road  where 
every  actor  halts  in  more  or  less  dismay. 
One  way  the  road  stretches,  the  sign 
spelling  "  Money."  Diverging  from  it 
sweeps  the  other  road  along  which  the 
sign  post's  finger  points  "Artistic  oppor- 
tunity." Maude  Adams  was  the  image 
of  youthful  irresolution.  Her  mother 
intervened.  There  had  been  an  offer 
from  Charles  Frohman.  The  part  was 
a  small  one  in  the  play  by  David 
Belasco  and  H.  C.  DeMille,  "Men  and 
Women,"  with  which  Mr.  Frohman 
proposed  '  to  open  his  Twenty-third 
Street  Theatre.  The  salary  was  scarcely 
40 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

half  that  which  Charles  Hoyt  extended 
with  open  hand. 

"Stay  in  New  York  and  join  the  Froh- 
man  company,"  said  her  mother,  and 
on  October  23 d,  1890,  she  appeared  as 
Dora  Prescott,  at  the  opening  of  the 
Stock  company  at  Proctor's  Twenty- 
third  Street  Theatre.  The  next  year 
she  played,  in  the  same  theatre,  Nell,  a 
cripple,  in  "The  Lost  Paradise." 
Then  it  was  that  New  York  audiences 
came  to  know  that  delicate,  heart-touch- 
ing, indefinable  thing  known  as  the 
pathos  of  Maude  Adams.  It  is  more 
than  half  natural,  that  pathos,  being 
writ  in  curiously  pensive  features  and 
sounded  in  a  sweetly  plaintive  voice 
that  are  Maude  Adams'  own. 
At  the  close  of  the  long  runs  of  these 
plays  in  New  York  there  was  much 
concern  along  the  Rialto  when  the  news 
went  forth  that  John  Drew  had  re- 
nounced his  eighteen  years  fealty  to 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

Augustin  Daly  and  had  gone  over  to 
the  Frohman  forces.  Of  equally  agi- 
tating interest  was  the  question,  "To 
whom  will  John  Drew  make  stage  love 
now?"  Audiences  that  had  seen  him 
pouring  forth  the  fervor  of  his  heart  in 
many  years  of  accumulated  affection  at 
the  feet  of  Ada  Rehan  could  not  fancy 
his  making  stage  love  to  any  one  else.  It 
was  a  disturbing  question  and  Charles 
Frohman,  to  all  queries,  replied:  "I 
have  not  yet  decided."  It  was  a  demure 
young  girl  who  answered  the  question  a 
great  many  miles  from  New  York. 
She  was  posing  for  her  old  friend,  that 
venerable  photographer,  Thors,  of  San 
Francisco.  As  he  manipulated  the 
green  curtain  and  focused  the  camera 
he  chatted  of  matters  theatrical. 
"Who  is  to  be  John  Drew's  leading 
woman?"  he  inquired,  without  in  the 
least  expecting  that  his  small  sitter 
would  know. 

42 


Sarony 


AS   LADY   BABBIE   IN   "THE   LITTLE   MINISTER' 
(Empire  Theatre,  1897) 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

"Why,  I  am." 

"You!     Don't  tell  fibs.     You!     The 
idea." 

"Yes.      I'm  not  telling  fibs,"  she  in- 
sisted. 

Whereupon  the  photographer  became 
so  angry  that  he  crossed  the  room  and 
gave  her  ears  an  admonitory  pinch. 
Not  until  three  months  later,  when  he 
saw  headlines  challenging  the  attention 
of  the  hasty  reader  to  Charles  Froh- 
man's  announcement  that  he  had  chosen 
Maude  Adams  for  the  leading  support 
for  his  new  star,  John  Drew,  did  the 
old  photographer  believe  in  the  truthful- 
ness of  the  little  girl  who  had  sat  for  him 
every  year  since  the  time  when  she  and 
Flora  Walsh  stood  together  in  all.  the 
glory  of  their  seven  years  and  the 
trousers  that  belonged  to  their  costumes 
in  "The  Wandering  Boy,"  and  a  blind- 
ing light  revealed  to  him  that  she  had, 
all  unnoticed  by  him,  grown  up,  grown 
43 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

into  the  ranks  and  dignity  of  leading 
woman  for  a  foremost  American  star. 
The  play  which  was  chosen  for  Mr. 
Drew's  stellar  debut  was  "The  Masked 
Ball."  The  play  was  an  adaptation 
from  the  French  by  Clyde  Fitch.  A 
fashionable  audience,  made  up  of  the 
folk  who  had  hitherto  "gone  to  no 
playhouse  but  Daly's,"  gathered  to  bid 
John  Drew  welcome  under  the  new 
auspices.  The  audience  was  pleased 
by  the  play,  charmed  with  its  old 
favorite,  John  Drew,  but  it  was  fasci- 
nated by  the  small,  girlish  creature  at 
whom  it  had  looked  critically  through 
its  lorgnette  when  she  made  her  diffi- 
dent entrance.  She  played  the  young 
wife,  Suzanne  Blondet,  and  played  a 
feigned  tipsy  scene.  By  way  of  admin- 
istering to  her  husband  a  needed  lesson 
she  came  reeling  out  upon  the  stage 
with  a  stammering:  "Good — morn  — 
Paul!  Hello  Paulie!"  "Your  hus- 
44 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

band  is  a  nice  man,"  she  continued. 
"A  very  nice  man,  but  he  can't  dance 
very  well.  I  think  he  has  too  many 
feet."  When  her  husband  inquired 
where  she  had  been  she  said :  "  I  don't 
know."  Reeling  and  swaying  she 
dropped  into  a  chair  and  with  a  queer 
little  grimace  stammered:  "I  —  I — think 
I'll  have  to  sit  down  a  minute." 
In  clumsier  hands  this  scene  would 
have  been  gross.  The  frail  young  girl, 
clad  in  an  Empire  gown  of  old  pink 
brocade,  and  carrying  a  long-stemmed 
pink  rose  which  she  waved  aimlessly  to 
emphasize  her  vague  remarks,  made  it 
bewitching.  Twelve  times  the  audience 
called  her  before  the  curtain  to  express 
its  pleasure.  The  next  morning  the 
frosty  critics  thawed  and  made  noble 
amends  for  their  previous  indifference. 
"To  make  a  tipsy  scene  interesting 
and  at  the  same  time  inoffensive  is  the 
test  of  acting.  Not  one  actor  out 
45 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

of  a  thousand  can  achieve  it,"  said  one. 
Of  that  tipsy  scene  Miss  Adams  said : 
"It  wasn't  easy  to  do.  You  see  I 
couldn't  get  tipsy  myself  to  form  my 
conception  of  the  part,  for  when  you 
are  really  intoxicated  you  don't  know 
how  you  feel  and  can't  remember  what 
you  do  at  all  afterwards;  my  men 
friends  tell  me  I  might  have  studied 
the  part  from  tipsy  women,  but  there 
was  the  great  danger  of  overdoing  it 
and  shocking  people.  Then,  too,  I  am 
not  really  intoxicated  in  the  piece.  I 
am  only  feigning  it.  I  realized  that 
I  must  do  it  as  a  sober  woman  who  is 
trying  to  make  others  think  that  she  is 
intoxicated.  I  thought  about  it, 
dreamed  about  it,  acted  it  out  before 
the  mirror  for  weeks,  my  only  assistant 
being  my  imagination.  I  call  the  whole 
scene  a  flight  of  tipsy  imagination. 
"The  scene  isn't  a  bit  like  me.  My 
old  friends  are  astonished  at  my  actions. 
46 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

One  of  the  members  of  the  Sothern 
company  said:  'Why,  whatever  has 
gotten  into  you?  You  never  used  to 
touch  a  drop  with  us/  'Why,'  I  said, 
cIVe  gone  to  the  demnition  bow-wows 
and  am  tipsy  every  night  now/ ' 
That  scene  in  "The  Masked  Ball" 
made  Maude  Adams  what  she  has  been 
ever  since,  a  prime  metropolitan  favorite. 
"The  Masked  Ball,"  having  run  its 
successful  course  for  eighteen  months, 
Henry  Guy  Carleton's  light  comedy, 
"The  Butterflies,"  was  chosen  for  Mr. 
Drew's  next  vehicle.  Miss  Adams' 
part  as  Miriam,  the  daughter  of  a 
pauperized  follower  after  the  gods  of 
Society,  was  not  a  strong  one,  but  in 
its  circumscribed  scope  she  revealed  a 
marked  and  pleasing  personality.  One 
who  saw  her  for  the  first  time  in  "  The 
Butterflies"  said:  "Her  laughter  was 
delicious.  One  stared  at  the  stage  to 
see  from  which  of  the  four  women 
47 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

standing  on  the  stage  it  proceeded.  It 
was  different  from  the  ordinary  laugh 
as  a  tattoo  on  a  tin  pan  is  from  the  vox 
humana  of  a  pipe  organ.  It  welled  up 
musically  from  a  light,  girlish  heart.  It 
trilled  as  a  bird  trills.  It  rippled  as  a 
brook  ripples.  It  caused  the  grimmest 
f  face  in  the  house  to  relax  into  lines  of 
merriment.  And  yet  there  was  no  hint 
of  hoyden  in  it.  It  was  the  laugh  of  a 
gentlewoman,  keyed  to  the  diapason  of 
refined  merriment." 

In  the  third  of  the  series  of  Drew  plays 
is  the  door  of  opportunity  again  swung 
wide  open  to  Miss  Adams.  As  Jessie 
Keber,  a  toymaker's  daughter,  she  is 
wooed  by  Lord  Clivebrooke,  in  "The 
Bauble  Shop."  The  play  evolves  from 
the  starting  point  of  the  young  noble- 
man's dishonorable  intentions  toward 
the  shopkeeper's  daughter  to  the  pure 
and  honorable  love  he  offers  her  at  the 
close  of  the  play.  Henry  Arthur  Jones 
48 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

gave  Miss  Adams  a  chance  for  exquisite 
character  portrayal  in  the  scene  in  which 
she  describes  to  her  father  the  beautiful 
home  which  her  lover  has  promised  her. 
"The  Imprudent  Young  Couple,"  a 
comedy  by  Henry  Guy  Carleton,  was 
a  failure,  but  it  did  not  fail  soon  enough 
to  rob  Miss  Adams  of  her  success  as 
the  young  wife,  a  part  which  disclosed 
equally  her  gifts  of  comedy  and  pathos. 
"Christopher,  Jr.,"  a  comedy  by 
Madeleine  Lucette  Riley,  was  soon  sub- 
stituted for  "The  Imprudent  Young 
Couple."  In  this  Miss  Adams  again 
etched  delicately  the  gamut  of  a  gentle- 
woman's emotions  with  the  effect  of 
reaching  both  the  brain  and  heart  of 
her  audience. 

Fortune  veered  in  the  next  Drew 
dramatic  venture.  The  play  was  "The 
Squire  of  Dames."  A  flippant  and 
totally  heartless  young  society  matron 
it  was  that  Miss  Adams  portrayed. 
49 


MAUDE'     ADAMS 

The  part  was  an  unsympathetic  one 
and  Maude  Adams  was  sadly  miscast. 
For  the  first  time  since  those  hard, 
early  days,  when  she  walked  in  the  rain 
across  Union  Square  and  said  she  chose 
to  learn  the  vicissitudes  of  an  actor's 
life,  she  looked  failure  in  the  eyes. 
But  fortune  veered  once  more  and 
turned  upon  her  a  smiling  face  when  it 
granted  Louis  N.  Parker  and  Murray 
Carson's  "Rosemary"  for  the  next 
season's  play.  "Rosemary"  was  an 
idyllic  play  of  young  love  and,  as 
Dorothy  Cruikshank,  Maude  Adams 
was  its  heroine.  In  the  minds  of  lovers 
of  good  plays  the  opening  scene  lingers 
as  a  fadeless  picture.  Maude  Adams, 
in  a  quaint  bonnet  and  shawl,  sits  beside 
the  youthful  and  ill-tempered  young 
lover  with  whom  she  had  started  to 
elope,  looking  very  dispirited,  for  which 
there  was,  indeed,  ample  cause.  The 
carriage  had  broken  down.  The  rain 
-  50 


Sarony 


AS   THE   GYPSY    IN    "THE   LITTLE   MINUTER" 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

was  descending  in  sheets.  The  youth- 
ful pair,  who  would  have  eloped,  looked 
as  though  they  wished  they  were  at  their 
respective  homes  and  in  their  respective 
individual  beds.  Elopement  had  lost 
its  savor  at  this  contrast  with  the  savage 
elements.  The  middle-aged  Sir  Jasper 
Thorndyke  discovers  their  plight  and 
offers  them  the  hospitality  of  his  home. 
They  accept  and  confide  in  him  the 
wonderful  story  of  their  elopement. 
Shortly  afterward  the  pursuing  parents 
of  the  would-be  bride,  also  stormbound, 
seek  his  hospitality.  The  scenes  that 
ensue  provide  much  wholesome  comedy. 
But  the  golden  thread  of  sympathy  in 
the  story  is  the  undiscovered  and  un- 
spoken love  of  the  eloping  bride  for 
her  host  and  his  noble  renunciation  of 
it.  Her  portraiture  of  Dorothy  Cruik- 
shank  redoubled  the  firmness  of  Maude 
Adams'  hold  upon  the  popular  heart. 
The  only  adverse  criticism  of  the  play 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

was  that  of  the  epilogue  in  which  Sir 
Jasper,  John  Drew,  fifty  years  later 
discovers  a  tiny  sprig  of  rosemary  that 
the  little  bride  had  given  him  "for  re- 
membrance/' and  wonders  how  he  came 
into  possession  of  it.  The  hearts  that 
had  warmed  to  little  Mistress  Cruik- 
shank  were  wounded  by  his  forgetful- 
ness.  They  declared  that  this  lack  of 
memory  of  his  misty  romance  was  a 
false  note.  Her  surpassing  success  in 
this  role  gave  to  Charles  Frohman  the 
greater  courage  of  his  conviction  that 
her  talents  and  popularity  made  of 
Maude  Adams  valuable  star  material. 
The  time  for  the  beginning  of  a  stellar 
career  had  arrived  and  now  for  the  play. 
Fortuitously  it  happened  that  J.  M. 
Barrie,  the  author  of  "The  Little  Min- 
ister," was  paying  a  visit  to  America 
and  while  in  New  York  saw  the  play 
"Rosemary." 

"There,"  said  he,  when  the  final  cur- 
52 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

tain  had  fallen  upon  Maude  Adams,  to 
an  accompaniment  of  "bravos,"  "is  the 
woman  to  play  my  Lady  Babbie." 
When  he  returned  to  England  he  had 
signed  a  contract  to  deliver  a  dramatiza- 
tion of  "The  Little  Minister"  the  fol- 
lowing summer.  On  September  a8th, 
1897,  Miss  Adams  made  her  debut  in 
the  play  as  a  star  at  the  Empire  Theatre 
in  New  York.  She  burst  into  splendid 
stardom  in  a  night.  The  play  ran  for 
three  years.  At  the  close  of  her  second 
season  in  it  she  played  a  supplementary 
season  as  Juliet. 

Less  satisfying  than  her  surpassing 
Lady  Babbie,  her  rendition  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  passionate  young  Capulet 
was  exquisitely  girlish.  The  pathetic 
note  of  hopeless  love  was  firmly  struck 
and  held.  The  lack  of  stately  declama- 
tion was  deplored  by  the  older  critics 
who  had  memory  standards  by  which 
to  measure  her  performance.  Of  these 
53 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

memory  standards  Maude  Adams  had 
none. 

"If  I  have  smashed  the  traditions  it 
was  because  I  knew  no  traditions,"  she 
said,  yet  it  was  well  known  that  Miss 
Adams  as  Juliet  had  disappointed  her- 
self. 

"I  have  not  done  what  I  intended  to 
do,"  she  said  to  those  who  congratulated 
her. 

When  it  became  known  that  Charles 
Frohman  designed  to  place  the  heavy 
mantle  of  L'Aiglon,  the  Rostand 
drama  which  Bernhardt  was  playing  with 
tremendous  success  in  Paris,  upon 
Maude  Adams'  slight  shoulders,  there 
was  a  storm  of  friendly  protest.  The 
storm  of  dissuasion  increased  when  it 
was  known  that  Mme.  Bernhardt  would 
come  to  New  York  and  play  in  a  rival 
theatre  in  the  same  production  that 
winter. 

"  It  isn't  fair  to  Miss  Adams,"  exclaim- 
54 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

cd  the  protestants,  "to  pit  a  young 
girl  against  a  woman  of  twice  her  age 
and  four  times  her  experience.  Com- 
pared with  the  rush  and  roar  of  the 
Bernhardt.  dramatic  strength,  Maude 
Adams'  performance  will  be  as  the 
piping  of  a  shepherd's  reed  in  a  storm." 
But  Charles  Frohman  persisted.  He 
said  that  Miss  Adams  was  physically 
adapted  to  the  role  of  the  weakling  son 
of  Napoleon.  He  said  that  what  she 
lacked  in  dramatic  force  would  be  more 
than  made  up  by  the  skill  in  depicting 
pathos,  which  is  one  of  her  rarest  gifts. 
Miss  Adams  created  the  Eaglet  for 
Americans.  Later  Mme.  Bernhardt 
arrived  and  played  it  magnificently. 
But  Miss  Adams'  engagement  in  New 
York  was  the  longer  one. 
Subsequently  she  played  for  a  season  the 
role  of  Phoebe  in  "Quality  Street/' 
another  Barrie  play  of  gossamer  texture 
and  furnishing  a  diaphanous  part  for 
55 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

the  star.  But  while  the  play  was  of 
character  so  flimsy  the  public  remained 
loyal  to  its  Maude  Adams. 
At  the  close  of  this  season  it  was  an- 
nounced that  Miss  Adams'  impaired 
health  forbade  her  returning  to  the 
stage.  She  would  rest  and  recuperate 
abroad.  Various  and  disturbing  were 
the  rumors  of  the  nature  of  her  illness. 
Visions  of  tuberculosis  were  exagger- 
ated into  rumors  that  set  matinee  girls 
and  even  matinee  matrons  mourning. 
No  better  index  of  the  character  of  the 
most  popular  of  American  actresses  can 
be  shown  than  to  describe  the  manner 
in  which  she  spent  her  vacation  abroad. 
To  those  who  read  that  she  would 
spend  the  summer  of  1901  in  Europe 
there  arose  visions  of  banquetings  and 
gay  festal  occasions  in  the  capitals  of 
Europe.  But  the  cables  brought  no 
such  intelligence  of  Lady  Babbie. 
Shortly  after  her  arrival  in  Paris,  when 

56 


Byron,  N.  Y. 

MAUDE   ADAMS   AND  JOHN   DREW    IX    "ROSEMARY" 
(Empire  Theatre,  1898) 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

those  who  watched  the  newspapers  for 
tidings  of  the  manner  of  her  vacation 
expected  chroniclings  of  gay  dinners 
and  dashes  in  brilliant  equipages  in  the 
Bois  de  Boulogne,  Maude  Adams  dis- 
appeared from  the  ken  of  newspaper 
men.  She  had  left  her  lodgings  and 
driven  away,  no  one  knew  where. 
When  she  reappeared  it  was  in  a 
strangely  different  spot  from  that  in 
which  one  might  expect  to  find  an  emi- 
nently successful  actress.  She  had  gone 
to  a  convent  in  the  village  of  Tours,  in 
France,  and  induced  the  black-robed 
sisters  to  take  her  as  a  summer  boarder. 
When  she  came  to  them  first,  saying, 
"  I  am  tired  and  want  to  rest  in  absolute 
quiet.  Will  you  let  me  live  with  you 
for  awhile?"  the  good  sisters  knew  she 
was  an  American  and  fancied  that  she 
was  an  heiress,  weary  of  the  exacting 
demands  of  society.  Charmed  by  the 
modesty  of  her  manners  and  touched 
57 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

by  the  weariness  disclosed  by  face  and 
walk  and  gestures,  they  gave  her  a 
small,  cell-like  room,  in  a  high  tower  of 
the  convent  building,  whose  single 
narrow  window  looked  out  upon  the 
gray-green  foliage  of  dense  olive  groves. 
In  the  room  was  a  narrow  white  iron 
bed,  a  wooden  washstand  with  a  pew- 
ter jug  and  basin,  a  chair  and  an  oratory. 
For  the  long  summer  months  Miss 
Adams  lived  the  life  of  the  nuns.  She 
rose  at  five  and  dressed  in  the  fresh, 
gray  dawn.  At  six  she  knelt  with  the 
sisters  at  the  matin  service  in  the  little 
chapel.  The  most  delightful  memories 
of  that  restful  summer,  she  says,  was  of 
the  beautiful  music  of  those  morning 
services.  To  the  refectory  in  the  base- 
ment she  went  after  the  service  for 
breakfast  with  the  nuns,  a  simple  break- 
fast of  fruit,  fresh  from  the  convent 
gardens,  and  a  chop.  Afterward  she 
went  for  a  long  walk,  forming  friend- 

58 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

ships  with  the  peasant  children  on  the 
way.  Odd  keepsakes  they  gave  her, 
bits  of  coral  and  seaweed  that  had  been 
brought  back  by  wandering  relatives 
from  excursions  on  the  sea,  feathers 
from  the  hats  of  the  peasants,  odd, 
worn  sabots  and  scraps  of  their  bright- 
colored,  new  frocks.  All  of  these  she 
brought  back  with  her.  One  of  the 
little  girls  was  her  most  faithful  attend- 
ant. This  was  the  daughter  of  Jacques, 
the  wood  cutter,  a  tiny  girl  with  a 
small  face  lit  by  big,  wistful  eyes  that 
smiled  seldom  except  when  they  looked 
upon  "the  nice  little  American  lady 
who  never  tires  of  walking."  Little 
Angelique  followed  Miss  Adams  on  all 
her  long  tramps  between  the  convent 
and  the  village  of  Tours. 
Dinner  was  served  at  mid-day.  This, 
too,  was  a  simple  meal ;  chicken,  a  salad 
and  one  vegetable,  usually  carrots.  The 
nuns  eschewed  sweets  as  in  the  class  of 
59 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

the  useless  things  of  this  world.  After 
dinner  she  went  to  the  small  room 
above  the  olive  groves  and  studied 
French,  covering  pages  of  an  American 
writing  pad  with  conjugations  and  de- 
clensions. 

"The  greatest  trouble  I  have  here  is 
to  know  what  to  do  with  these  pages 
when  I  have  finished  with  them.  They 
are  useless  to  me  and  yet  they  repre- 
sent so  much  hard  work  that  I  don't 
like  to  throw  them  away.  Fancy  a 
place  so  restful  that  such  a  trouble  as 
this  is  the  only  one  in  life.  But  that  is 
all  the  trouble  there  is  in  the  world  when 
you  live  in  La  Maison  de  Retraite  near 
Tours." 

Then  came  another  walk  and  then  a 
light  supper,  frequently  of  stewed  fruit 
and  French  bread  without  butter. 
There  was  a  vesper  service,  and  the  nuns 
and  their  guest  retired  to  their  rooms 
and  five  minutes  later  the  lights  were 
60 


Sarony 


PRIVATE    PORTRAIT    TAKEN    ABOUT    189(5 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

out.  Thus  the  day  passed  with  but 
the  slight  difference  that  when  she 
knew  them  better  and  had  told  them 
gently  that  she  was  an  actress  instead 
of  an  heiress,  the  afternoons  were  de- 
voted less  to  French  verbs  than  to 
conversation  lessons  from  the  nuns. 
"After  all,"  said  Sister  Mercia,  the 
venerable  Sister  Superior,  "  you  were 
a  woman  before  you  were  an  actress,  a 
good  woman,  and  I  am  sure  you  are  a 
good  actress." 

While  she  lived  at  the  convent  a  bulky 
package  of  paper  arrived.  It  came 
from  New  York  and  bore  many  marks 
of  its  travels,  the  cover  being  tattered, 
and  there  being  the  impress  of  many 
seals.  It  was  the  first  and  only  intru- 
sion of  the  concerns  of  the  unquiet, 
outer  world.  Miss  Adams  carried  it 
to  her  room  and  broke  the  seal.  Then 
she  read  it  avidly.  It  was  her  part 
in  "Quality  Street,"  the  new  Barrie 
61 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

play  in  which  she  would  play  Phoebe 
Throssel  in  October.  She  rehearsed 
it  in  the  narrow  room,  or  in  the  olive 
groves  beneath  her  window,  or  even  on 
tramps  about  Tours  to  the  wonder 
of  the  ever-attending  Angelique.  One 
sister  came  upon  her  pirouetting  on 
the  sward.  She  was  rehearsing  the 
scene  in  which  she  complained  that  she 
couldn't  make  her  feet  stop  dancing. 
Seeing  the  shadow  of  a  black  robe 
and  the  wonder  in  a  pair  of  watching 
blue  eyes,  Miss  Adams  laughed  and 
confessed.  And,  thereafter,  she  re- 
hearsed before  the  nuns  instead  of 
behind  them.  When  she  left  the 
place  of  peace,  turning  her  back  reluc- 
tantly upon  its  gray  walls,  silhouetted 
against  a  placid  sky  and  the  green  back- 
ground of  hills  and  trees,  she  carried 
with  her  a  keepsake  nearly  unique. 
Sister  Mercia  had  departed  from  a  rigid 
rule.  She  had  sat  for  her  photograph, 
62 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

and  Miss  Adams  keeps  it  always  in  the 
room  which  she  has  finished  to  dupli- 
cate her  retreat  at  Tours  in  her  New 
York  home,  a  reminder  of  a  quieter 
world  than  that  bordered  every  night 
by  a  ribbon  of  lights. 
It  was  after  her  season  in  the  pretty 
fantasy  "Quality  Street"  that  the  ru- 
mors of  Miss  Adam's  ill  health  broke 
out  anew  and  that  she  confirmed  them 
to  a  certain  degree  by  deciding  to  not 
play  for  another  year  at  least.  When 
the  rumors  of  the  alarmists  were  sifted 
to  a  substratum  of  truth  it  was  learned 
that  Miss  Adams  had  taxed  her  strength 
too  greatly  by  playing  almost  inces- 
santly for  seventeen  years.  Her  vaca- 
tions had  been  short  and  with  the 
exception  of  the  idyllic  one  at  Tours 
had  been  in  great  measure  filled  with 
onerous  preparations  for  the  next  season. 
She  was  justly  proud  of  the  fact  that 
she  had  never  in  her  life  missed  a 

63 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

performance,  but  the  long  strain  had 
affected  a  frail  constitution  to  the  point 
of  exhaustion. 

"  Miss  Adams  ia  simply  tired,"  said 
her  physician.  "  She  must  rest  for  a 
year  at  least." 

And  Miss  Adams  obeyed.  She  rested 
at  the  doctor's  will,  and  in  obedience  to 
her  own  moods,  at  her  mountain  home 
at  Oneteola  Park,  near  Tannersville, 
N.  Y.,  in  the  Catskills,  at  Sandy  Garth, 
at  her  farm  near  Ronkonkoma,  Long 
Island,  and  at  her  town  house,  No.  22 
East  4  ist  Street,,  New  York.  And 
when  resting  in  these  accustomed  spots 
began  to  pall  upon  her,  the  kindly 
autocrat  of  her  physical  well-being 
ordered  her  to  go  abroad,  to  travel 
wherever  she  wished,  though  slowly,  but 
at  all  events  to  make  her  ultimate  ob- 
jective point  a  trip  up  the  Nile  and  a 
tented  sojourn  on  the  Lybian  Desert. 
His  patient  was  docile.  In  company 
64 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

with  Miss  Davis,  the  sister  of  Richard 
Harding  Davis,  she  set  out  for  Jeru- 
salem, stopping  for  a  month's  camping 
on  the  Lybian  Desert.  A  native  cook 
and  a  guide  accompanied  them.  Miss 
Adams  slept  in  a  tent  and  spent  all 
day  in  a  saddle.  Five  weeks  of  the 
imposed  year  of  rest  she  spent  at  Jeru- 
salem. 

The  year  of  exile  from  stageland  ended, 
she  returned  to  the  heart  of  Thespis, 
refreshed,  renewed,  and  eager  for  the 
work  she  loved.  The  year's  rest  had 
been  efficacious.  Maude  Adams  had, 
in  respect  to  health,  been  born  again. 
She  returned  to  the  stage  in  "The 
Pretty  Sister  of  Jose,"  which  sufficed 
for  a  successful  season. 
The  manner  of  the  adoption  of  cc  Peter 
Pan,"  her  latest  vehicle,  now  in  its 
second  year,  was  unusual.  Her  mana- 
ger, having  found  no  modern  play  to 
his  liking  for  her,  had  planned  a  Shake- 
65 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

spearian  year.  They  were  to  produce 
"As  You  Like  It,"  the  star  to  appear 
as  Rosalind,  and  later,  perhaps,  other 
lighter  and  more  joyous  of  Shake- 
speare's heroines.  As  he  was  leaving 
his  star's  presence,  the  manager  drew 
from  his  overcoat  the  manuscript  of 
"  Peter  Pan." 

"  Here's  a  play  for  children,  by  your 
beloved  Barrie,"  said  Mr.  Frohman. 
"  I  do  not  think  that  I  will  produce  it, 
but  you  may  be  interested  in  reading  it." 
Miss  Adams  said  :  "  I  had  not  finished 
the  first  act  before  the  quaint  character 
of  '  Peter  Pan '  had  charmed  me.  I 
could  feel  the  presence  of  the  Fairies 
and  the  Indians  and  the  Pirates  and 
the  lost  boys  of  Never-Never-Never 
Land,  and  in  their  midst  the  dashing, 
winsome  c  Peter  Pan.'  When  I  had 
reached  the  last  line  of  the  play  I  had 
made  my  decision.  I  would  play  the 
character.  When  I  saw  Mr.  Frohman 
66 


Sarony 


MAUDE   ADAMS   AS  JULIET 
(Empire  Theatre,  1899) 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

again  I  said,  'You  may  shelve  your 
Shakespearian  plans  for  the  present. 
I  am  going  to  play  c  Peter  Pan/  ' 
It  was  not  until  then  that  I  recalled 
a  remark  which  Mr.  Barrie  had  made 
to  me  the  year  before.  "  A  character 
is  in  my  mind  that  has  come  to  me 
through  you  and  I  am  going  to  make 
a  play  of  it."  When  he  learned  that 
we  were  going  to  produce  his  play  he 
wrote,  "  I  want  you  to  know  that  it 
was  you  that  inspired  the  writing  of  the 
play."  So  it  was  a  kind  of  mental 
telepathy  between  Mr.  Barrie  and 
"  Peter  Pan  "  and  me  all  the  while. 

Secondary  only  to  her  interest  in 
the  stage  is  that  in  her  home.  Miss 
Adams,  as  has  been  said,  has  three 
homes.  That  which  shelters  her  when 
she  is  in  New  York  is  a  narrow  four- 
story  brownstone  English-basement 
house,  a  stone's  throw  east  of  Bryant 
Park,  and  near  Madison  Avenue. 
67 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

Here  she  has  gathered  under  one  roof 
most  of  the  souvenirs  of  her  travels. 
The  bookroom  is  her  favorite  apart- 
ment. In  this  quiet  spot  which  others 
might  call  the  library,  but  which  she 
gives  the  Anglo-Saxon  title,  is  the 
papyrus  which  she  brought  from  her 
tour  of  the  Holy  Lands,  the  oldest 
play  manuscript  in  the  world.  Sixty 
books,  chiefly  in  papyrus,  she  brought 
from  her  journeyings  in  Egypt  and  on 
the  Desert  of  Sahara  and  keeps  on 
locked  shelves  in  her  bookroom.  Rare 
books  and  first  editions  are  Maude 
Adams'  only  form  of  extravagance. 
Beyond  the  bookroom  on  the  main 
floor  is  a  conservatory,  and  beyond 
this  lies  her  nunlike  bed  chamber  and 
bathroom.  On  the  second  floor  are  a 
dining  room  and  drawing  room  and  on 
upper  floors  still  other  bedrooms  for 
the  family  and  servants. 
The  family  consists  of  her  mother  and 
68 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

her  aged  grandmother,  besides  the  star. 
It  has  been  named  by  those  who  have 
visited  it  "  The  House  of  Silence." 
A  scholastic  calm  always  reigns  there 
and  so  quiet  are  the  servants,  so  exclu- 
sive of  all  noise  the  menage,  that  the 
home  might  be  mistaken  for  one  in  the 
depths  of  the  country  instead  of  in  the 
centre  of  the  swirl  and  roar  of  the 
largest  and  noisiest  city  in  America. 
Here,  as  at  her  farm,  Miss  Adams' 
frequent  alterations  and  remodeling  of 
the  house  indicate  her  fad  for  archi- 
tecture. She  seeks  quaint,  Elizabethan 
effects.  Her  farm  house  at  Ronkon- 
koma  has  for  the  lower  floor  one  vast 
hall  like  that  in  which  the  heroes  of 
Scotland  entertained  their  kingly  visi- 
tors. This  simple  room  has  four  fire- 
places, one  in  the  middle  of  each  wall. 
Here  the  family  sit  and  chat,  and  in 
one  corner  dine.  The  upper  floor  of 
the  half-brick,  half-stone  structure  is 

69 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

given  over  to  large,  airy,  sunny  bed 
chambers.  On  the  farm  Miss  Adams 
keeps  her  dogs.  A  half  dozen  hand- 
some ones  tumble  about  the  visitor  in 
rollicking  welcome.  There  is  a  huge 
St.  Bernard,  two  greyhounds,  a  French 
bull  and  a  collie.  The  St.  Bernard  has 
the  unique  name,  bestowed  by  the  star, 
"Day's  Eye."  Near  the  house  is  an 
artificial  lake  where,  in  the  summer 
months,  Miss  Adams  takes  a  morning 
swim.  She  keeps  a  half  dozen  horses 
and  rides  and  drives  a  great  deal  while 
at  home.  Three  years  ago  she  set 
out  a  grove  of  walnut  trees,  declaring 
that  it  was  every  landholder's  duty  to 
contribute  to  the  arboreal  beauty  of  the 
landscape,  and  that  she  planted  the 
trees  with  full  knowledge  that  she  would 
probably  not  live  to  see  the  maturity 
of  their  full-grown  splendor.  She  of- 
fered to  donate  a  new  station  house 
to  the  village  of  Ronkonkoma,  but  the 
70 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

railroad  regulations  forbidding  this  be- 
neficence, she  asked  permission  to  lay 
out  some  flower  beds  to  add  to  its 
attractiveness,  and  this  pleasure  was 
granted  her.  To  the  farm  she  always 
goes  to  spend  Sunday  when  she  is 
playing  in  New  York  or  Philadelphia. 
She  has  sometimes  traveled  from  Bos- 
ton after  a  Saturday  night  performance 
to  enjoy  a  Sabbath  rest  at  her  favorite 
retreat.  A  special  train  carries  the  star 
on  her  quest  of  rest.  To  a  picturesque 
cottage  in  the  Catskills  she  resorts  for 
a  few  weeks  of  the  exhilaration  of 
mountain  air  in  the  summer. 
While  her  popularity  is  pre-eminent, 
it  being  evident  not  only  from  her 
never  diminished  power  to  draw 
crowded  houses  in  all  cities  of  the 
United  States,  but  from  such  tangible 
tokens  as  an  automobile  which  she 
won  in  a  competitive  vote  for  the  most 
popular  actress  in  New  York,  and  by 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

the  golden  life-sized  statue  of  her  which 
was  sent  to  the  Paris  Exposition  as 
that  of  the  most  popular  of  American 
actresses,  and  by  yet  another  sign  that 
President  Roosevelt  went  behind  the 
scenes  to  compliment  her  on  her  act- 
ing, yet  her  modesty  and  reserve  are 
proverbial.  She  gives  no  thought  to 
social  life,  her  pronouncement  being 
that  one  may  not  be  at  once  a  society 
butterfly  and  a  working  grub.  Vital 
energy,  she  believes,  is  a  fixed  quantity 
and  she  who  makes  an  overdraft  upon 
it  for  social  purposes  must  of  necessity 
disappoint  her  audiences  by  listless 
performance.  Firmly  she  refuses  in- 
vitations to  social  functions,  leading  the 
life  of  her  choice,  that  of  a  semi-recluse 
for  art's  sake. 

Her  charities  are  many  but  quiet.  To 
the  friends  of  her  early  life  in  the  West 
she  is  loyal  and  kind,  but  for  new 
friendships  she  has  little  time,  and  per- 
72 


Saronv 


AS    PHOEBE    IX    "QUALITY    STREET' 
(Empire  Theatre,  1901) 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

mits  herself  small  opportunity.  The 
stage,  her  family,  her  few  old  friends, 
her  books,  her  music — for  she  is  a  good 
amateur  musician,  performing  well  upon 
the  piano,  harp,  and  'cello  (the  last  is 
her  favorite  instrument) — constitute  the 
circle  of  her  interests.  A  secretary, 
Miss  Louise  Boynton,  attends  to  her 
correspondence.  She  has  never  married, 
or  rather  she  has  been  much  married 
ever  since  she  can  remember  to  her 
profession.  Admirers  there  have  been, 
many  of  them,  but  they  seldom 
progressed  beyond  a  merely  initial 
acquaintance  incident  to  business.  One 
young  literary  man  formed  the,  to  him, 
pleasant  habit  of  escorting  Miss  Adams, 
before  she  had  graduated  from  the 
Maudie  period  of  her  existence,  and 
her  mother  to  and  from  the  stage  door. 
Miss  Adams  was  polite  but  gently  pre- 
occupied. Mrs.  Adams  was  pityingly 
watchful. 

73 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

"  I  may  as  well  tell  you,"  she  said  once 
in  kindly  tone,  "  that  you  are  only 
wasting  your  time  by  these  attentions. 
My  daughter  has  no  thought  of  young 
men  and  has  no  intention  of  marrying." 
Which  may  be  said  to  summarize  Miss 
Adams'  attitude  toward  marriage.  Her 
thoughts  of  romance,  her  close  friends 
say,  have  always  taken  the  direction  of 
effective  stage  scenes. 
"  I  learned  the  harp  when  I  was  a  girl, 
and  used  to  sit  beside  it  and  dream  of 
a  stage  scene  which  Mr.  Belasco  and 
Mr.  DeMille  should  write  for  me,  of 
a  young  man  leaning  over  a  girl  and 
proposing  to  her  while  her  fingers  idly 
swept  the  strings.  But  my  teacher 
came  in  one  day  when  I  was  dreaming 
thus  and  told  me  I  was  sitting  at  the 
wrong  end  of  the  harp  and  that  it 
would  be  impossible  for  anyone  but  a 
giant  to  lean  gracefully  over  the  right 
end  of  an  upright  instrument.  I 
74 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

couldn't  have  a  giant  make  love  to  me 
and  I  didn't  want  anyone  to  lean  awk- 
wardly over  the  harp,  so  away  went 
the  scene." 

Her  art  standards  are  the  highest.  She 
is  never  satisfied  with  any  performance 
of  her  own,  yet  to  members  of  her  com- 
pany she  is  most  patient.  Again  and 
again  she  will  go  over  her  own  part  of 
a  scene  that  the  person  who  plays  it 
with  her  may  perfect  himself.  Never 
does  she  complain  of  weariness.  In- 
variably she  rehearses  her  own  part 
after  the  rehearsal  is  over.  When  the 
rest,  exhausted,  have  gone  home,  she 
takes  the  stage  alone  and  remains  there 
often  until  midnight  going  over  her 
principal  scenes.  At  rehearsals  she 
nearly  always  wears  a  long  brown  coat, 
ancient  in  cut,  and  worn  as  to  seams  and 
edges.  That  old  brown  coat  she  de- 
clares is  her  mascot. 
Soaring  as  she  has  into  the  cloudland 
75 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

of  fantasy,  and  delving  into  the  depths 
of  tragedy,  it  is  known  to  her  intimates 
that  Maude  Adams  has  had  always  but 
one  stage  ambition.  It  expresses  itself 
in  brief  phrase.  She  desires  to  reign 
in  comedy.  She  would  be  the  Rejane 
of  America. 

To-day  Maude  Adams  is  one  of  the 
richest  women  on  the  stage.  Her  first 
season  as  a  star  was  so  profitable  as  to 
yield  her  the  snug  sum  of  forty  thou- 
sand dollars.  Proportionally  she  has 
been  successful  each  succeeding  season. 
And  she  has  always  invested  judiciously. 
For  example,  she  has  caused  to  be  set 
out  on  her  farm,  Sandy  Garth,  which 
she  has  gradually  extended  from  an 
eighty-acre  tract  to  one  of  two  hundred 
acres,  large  groves  of  walnut  trees,  and 
it  has  been  estimated  that  so  valuable 
will  be  these  trees  when  they  reach 
their  maturity,  in  about  thirty  years, 
that  were  all  Miss  Adams'  other  hold- 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

ings  swept  away,  and  were  she  to  leave 
the  stage,  she  could  live  palatially  upon 
the  profits  yielded  by  her  exceedingly 
profitable  walnut  groves. 

Recently  Miss  Adams  acquired  a 
theatre  car,  built  at  her  order  at  a  cost 
of  thirty  thousand  dollars,  which  is  part 
of  the  train  that  carries  the  Peter  Pan 
company  on  its  travels.  It  is  a  car  of 
the  ordinary  size  and  appearance  so  far 
as  the  exterior  is  concerned,  but  it  con- 
tains a  stage  upon  which  Miss  Adams 
and  her  company  rehearse  en  route  when- 
ever it  seems  to  her  advisable.  Thus 
she  can  rehearse  when  ever  she  likes, 
without  waiting  to  reach  the  theatre  at 
the  next  "stand." 

We  have  on  our  stage  actresses  of 
more  forceful  individuality,  and  there  are 
others  who  have  more  beauty,  whose 
art  is  more  mature  and  therefore  more 
finished.  But  it  remains  incontestable 
that  from  the  box-office  standpoint 
77 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

Maude  Adams  is  the  biggest  money- 
maker, and,  inferentially,  the  most 
popular  of  all  the  women  stars  on  the 
American  stage  to-day.  Certainly,  no 
other  actress  has  more  of  that  indefin- 
able quality  described  vaguely  as  charm. 
The  young  actress  has  succeeded  in 
obeying  to  the  letter  Charles  Frohman's 
advice  to  the  players :  "  Please  the 
women,  for  without  them  the  theatres 
would  have  to  close.  If  the  women 
do  not  like  a  play,  it  is  doomed.  If 
they  do  not  like  a  player,  he  or  she 
may  as  well  take  to  another  profession." 
Maude  Adams  has  pleased  the  women. 
She  is  idolized  by  many,  and  the  favorite 
player  of  them  all.  Her  popularity 
with  women  and  girls  was  shown  early 
by  the  enormous  sales  of  her  portraits, 
for  men  seldom  purchase  theatrical 
photographs. 

It   is   no  secret  for   those  who    know 

Miss  Adams  intimately  that  there  are 

78 


Sarony 


AS    PHOEBE    IX    "QUALITY    STREET" 
(Empire  Theatre,  1901) 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

in  her  two  distinct  personalities.  The 
Maude  Adams  of  the  stage  and  the 
Maude  Adams  in  private  life  are  two 
entirely  different  beings,  and  very  few 
know  her  in  this  latter  role,  for  she  avoids 
people  and  lives  away  from  the  world, 
preferring  and  seeking  solitude.  On 
the  stage,  a  gossamer,  spritelike  quality, 
ephemeral,  but  radiant  as  the  golden 
dust  on  the  butterfly's  wing,  is  her 
teasing,  pre-eminent  characteristic. 
Critics  have  described  her  as  elfish, 
diaphanous,  analysis-defying,  mysteri- 
ous, almost  weirdly  winsome.  Elusive- 
ness  is,  perhaps,  her  dominant  note  as  an 
actress.  Away  from  the  footlights  the 
woman  is  a  recluse.  Asceticism  is  the 
keynote  of  her  life.  If  she  had  not 
taken  to  the  stage  early  in  her  career 
and  grown  to  look  on  it  as  second 
nature,  it  is  probable  that  she  would 
have  taken  the  veil  and  passed  her 
life  in  a  convent.  Yet  the  asceticism 
79 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

of  Maude  Adams  is  without  austerity, 
it  is  a  wholesome  merriment  wedded 
with  stern  simplicity,  the  lonely  serenity 
of  the  scholar,  a  smile  upon  the  brood- 
ing features  of  the  monk,  the  sunlight 
playing  upon  the  coif  of  the  nun. 
This  voluntary  withdrawal  from  the 
public  gaze  every  second  that  she  is 
not  literally  on  the  stage  is  certainly 
singular  enough.  Other  players  weary 
at  times  of  the  human  crowd,  and  seek 
seclusion  for  health's  and  study's  sake, 
but  to  Maude  Adams  solitude  is  a 
luxury  which  has  become  a  necessity 
to  her  nature. 

There  is  a  suggestion  of  this  isolation 
in  the  set  melancholy  of  her  face  which 
is  pensive  and  thoughtful  in  repose  and 
haunted  as  by  some  secret  sorrow  even 
when  radiant  with  her  sweetest  smile. 
Hers,  too,  is  a  highly  nervous  tempera- 
ment, always  tuned  to  the  snapping 
point  and  her  frequent  physical  collapse 
80 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

arises  from  this  alone.  She  will  get  up 
in  the  morning  fresh  and  gay  as  the 
lark  and  by  noon  her  vitality  is  ex- 
hausted and  lassitude  and  moodiness 
have  seized  upon  her.  When  the 
evening  comes  she  seems  herself  again, 
full  of  merriment  and  enthusiasm  for 
her  work,  but  it  is  only  an  artificial 
reaction  brought  about  by  the  exertion 
of  her  tremendous  will-power,  and  the 
effort  gradually  saps  her  strength  until 
at  last  nature  rebels  and  she  can  go  on 
no  more  before  she  has  taken  another 
long  rest. 

She  told  the  writer  with  a  touch  of 
anger  how  a  party  of  New  Yorkers 
drove  across  her  farm,  Sandy  Garth, 
Long  Island,  and  how  she  hid  behind 
a  tree  until  they  had  driven  on,  dis- 
appointed because  they  had  caught  no 
glimpse  of  their  beloved,  elusive  Lady 
Babbie. 

"  It  is  because  the   public   loves   you 
Si 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

that  it  wants  to  see  and  know  more  of 
you/'  we  protested. 

"If  it  really  loved  me  it  would  leave 
me  alone,"  which  reply,  given  in  a  tone 
of  finality  that   closed  the  subject,  is 
proof  of  her  sincerity. 
Miss  Adams  tells  of  the  sympathy  of 
a  conductor  on  the  Long  Island  Rail- 
road who  asked  her   one    day  during 
the   third  year   of  the   run    of  "The 
Little  Minister"  if  she  were  not  tired 
of  playing  the  same  part  so  long. 
"  It  is  tiresome,"  the  star  admitted. 
The  conductor  leaned  upon  the  back 
of  the  car  seat  in  reflection  for  many 
minutes.    Then  he  bursit  out  in  sudden 
inspiration  :    "  Miss  Adams,  why  don't 
you  try  to  get  another  job  !  " 
These  stories  the  actress  tells  with  girl- 
ish  glee.     It   is  the  merriment  which 
tinges  her  asceticism,  the  sunlight  play- 
ing in  the  shadows  of  the  cloister. 
The  few  visitors  who  have  been  ad- 
82 


Byron,  X.  Y. 

AS   THE    DUKE   OF    REICHSTADT    IX    "L'AIGLON" 
(Knickerbocker  Theatre,  1901) 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

mitted  to  the  narrow  four-story  English 
basement  house  which  Miss  Adams 
owns  at  No.  22  East  Forty-first  street 
describe  it  as  an  oasis  of  scholastic 
peace  amid  the  roar  of  the  busy  metrop- 
olis. Servants  glide  noiselessly  about, 
speaking  in  the  hushed  tones  of  those 
accustomed  to  the  enforced  quiet  of  a 
sickroom,  and  as  if  watching  jealously 
to  guard  a  nervous  and  highly  strung 
temperament  from  the  jar  of  city  tur- 
moil. The  furniture  is  scant  and 
simple,  but  every  piece  smacks  of 
romance,  for  the  mistress  of  the  house 
is  an  ardent  collector  of  antiques  and 
possesses  some  valuable  specimens  en- 
riched recently  by  a  number  of  art 
treasures  picked  up  during  her  travels 
in  Egypt.  The  prevailing  color  is 
dark  green,  her  favorite  tint,  and  this 
color  and  also  the  old  woods  noticed 
in  the  reception  room,  appear  again  in 
the  square  central  hall,  where  a  French 

83 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

sedan  chair  forms  the  telephone  booth. 
Beyond  is  the  library,  another  small 
square  room,  whose  four  sides  are  lined 
from  floor  to  ceiling  with  rare  old 
books.  Here  are  complete  sets  of  all 
the  English  classics,  and  English  and 
French  plays  of  every  period.  Here, 
too,  are  the  English  philosophers,  and 
if  Miss  Adams  were  asked  to  name 
her  favorite  author  she  would  unhesi- 
tatingly answer:  "Herbert  Spencer." 
Opening  from  the  library  and  extend- 
ing in  a  straight  line  like  a  steamer 
gangway  to  the  rear  of  the  narrow  court 
is  the  actress'  private  suite. 
If  the  visitor  expects  to  see  here  a  vision 
of  rosy  light  filtering  through  silk-and- 
lace  draped  windows,  daintily  uphol- 
stered furniture,  and  the  gleam  of  half 
a  hundred  silver  toilet  articles,  a  rude 
disappointment  awaits  him.  In  these 
private  rooms  of  the  actress,  where  only 
the  most  intimate  friends  may  enter, 
84 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

one  comes  face  to  face  for  the  first  time 
with  the  soul  of  this  remarkable  woman. 
The  suite  is  screened  from  the  rest  of 
the  floor  by  a  small  fernery,  filled  with 
tall,  green  plants,  and  having  passed 
through  this,  one  enters  a  small  room 
of  about  ten  by  twelve  feet.  Surely 
not  Miss  Adams'  room,  this?  Her 
maid's?  Not  at  all.  This  is  Maude 
Adams'  bedroom,  and  it  is  an  exact 
replica  of  the  little  cell  she  occupied  in 
the  convent  at  Tours — the  bare,  white 
walls,  the  narrow  iron  bedstead,  pathetic 
in  its  simplicity,  the  brown,  home- 
woven  rug,  the  tiny,  severe  white  bath- 
room beyond,  the  solitude  and  intense 
quiet,  all  this  Maude  Adams  has  dupli- 
cated in  the  house  of  which  she  is 
mistress  and  which  is  hardly  half  a 
block  from  fashionable,  merry,  matter- 
of-fact  Fifth  avenue ! 
No  noise  from  the  street  ever  reaches 
this  retreat.  No  intrusive  sound  from 

85 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

a  neighboring  menage  penetrates  the 
high  walls  of  the  court.  Here  Maude 
Adams  finds  the  silence  and  the  peace 
she  loves.  Here  she  can  indulge  to 
the  full  her  fondness  for  introspection. 
Some  one  once  said  in  her  presence, 
"Self-study  is  unhealthful." 
"  Oh,  no  !  "  was  the  quick  reply.  "  It 
is  one  of  the  best  means  of  develop- 
ment.* ' 

"Genius,"  she  said,  "is  the  talent  for 
seeing  things  straight."  She  repeated 
this  earnestly,  pointing  a  slim,  level 
finger  for  emphasis.  "  It  is  seeing 
things  in  a  straight  line  without  any 
bend  or  break  or  aberration  of  sight, 
seeing  them  as  they  are,  without  any 
warping  of  vision.  Flawless  mental 
sight !  That  is  genius !  " 
There  is  one  element  missing  from  the 
cell-like  bedroom  in  her  New  York 
house,  which  is  ever  present  in  its 
prototype  at  Tours.  That  is  the  re- 
86 


Sarony 


AS  THE  DUKE  OF  REICHSTADT   IN   "L'ATGLON' 
(Knickerbocker  Theatre,  1901) 


I          C        C     t    <.       "l   i 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

ligious  element.  In  Maude  Adams' 
room  there  are  no  rosaries,  no  images, 
no  crosses,  no  colored  prints  of  the 
Crucifixion  or  of  the  Mater  Dolorosa. 
The  actress  is  not  a  devotee.  She 
belongs  to  no  sect,  has  adopted  no 
creed.  Hers  is  the  practical  religion  of 
altruism. 

Her  charities  are  many,  but  unobtru- 
sive. A  faded  gentlewoman,  one  of 
the  inefficients  in  the  battle  of  life, 
came  to  the  writer  one  day  with  a  long, 
sad  story  of  defeat.  She  must  leave 
the  small,  bare  room  where  she  and 
her  son  were  living  unless  help  came 
quickly.  Friends  had  helped  her,  but 
friends  grow  weary  of  helping.  There 
was  one  who  never  wearied.  If  Maude 
Adams  were  only  here,  but  she  was  in 
Europe. 

"  She  returned  this  morning." 
The    woman's    face    brightened,    then 
clouded  again. 

87 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

"  She  has  helped  me  so  often.  I  dread 
asking  her  again.  If  you  would  tell 
her  that  I  am  in  distress." 
That  afternoon,  a  note  reached  Miss 
Adams  as  she  was  leaving  for  Ronkon- 
koma,  her  Long  Island  home.  She 
placed  it  with  a  bill  in  the  hands  of  her 
maid,  and  an  hour  later  the  little  bare 
room  had  bloomed  into  a  spot  of  sun- 
shine. 

Other  instances  of  her  goodness  of 
heart  are  many.  A  lonely  little  girl 
who  had  come  to  New  York  to  seek 
her  fortune  had  a  hall  bedroom  on  the 
fourth  floor  of  a  house  in  which  Miss 
Adams  lived.  The  actress  had  never 
seen  the  little  girl,  but  in  some  way  the 
fact  of  her  existence  came  to  her  on 
the  child's  birthday.  Miss  Adams  took 
two  handsomely  bound  books  from  a 
package  just  arrived,  wrote  on  the  fly- 
leaf of  each :  "  To  a  ladye  on  her  birth- 
day, Maude  Adams,"  and  carried  them 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

upstairs  to  the  hallroom.  A  careworn, 
anxious  young  face  appeared  at  a  crack 
of  the  door. 

"  My  name  is  Adams,"  said  the  actress. 
"  I  have  rooms  on  the  second  floor. 
Someone  said  this  was  your  birthday. 
Will  you  accept  this  little  present?" 
This  with  a  sunny  Lady  Babbie 
smile. 

The  girl  took  the  books  and  read  the 
inscription  with  a  grateful  little  sob. 
Thereafter  the  name  of  Maude  Adams 
led  all  the  rest  in  her  calendar  of 
saints. 

Many  unfortunate  actresses  have  known 
her  bounty,  delicately  given. 
Not  a  few  have  found  in  her  home  a 
sailor's  snug  harbor  until  they  were 
strong  enough  again  to  brave  the  storm. 
One  of  these  while  seeking  an  engage- 
ment found  a  home  in  Miss  Adams' 
town  house  for  three  months.  Another 
to  whom  life  had  assumed  a  tragic  form 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

was  sent  to  her  farm,  where  she  re- 
mained for  a  year. 

Charitable  as  she  is  to  her  unfortunate 
sisters  of  the  profession,  Miss  Adams 
seldom  asks  managers  for  engagements 
for  them,  never  unless  she  has  seen 
them  play.  This  is  because  her  stan- 
dard of  art  is  high  and  because  she 
knows  the  cares  that  beset  the  busy 
manager.  Her  home,  her  purse,  her 
womanly  sympathy,  are  easily  drawn 
upon,  but  her  recommendation  of  a 
player  as  a  player  is  almost  as  rare  as 
her  newspaper  interviews,  and  she  never 
gives  an  interview. 

A  veteran  magazine  writer  claims  the 
distinction  of  being  the  first  of  the 
interviewers  whose  attentions  Miss 
Adams  firmly  declined.  He  relates 
his  experience  as  follows : 
"It  was  several  years  ago,  a  day  or  two 
after  Miss  Adams  made  her  first  hit  in 
<  The  Masked  Ball/  I  met  her  at  the 
90 


Otto  Sarony  Cc 


AS   PETER   PAX 
(Empire  Theatre,  1905) 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

stage  door  and  asked  her  for  an  appoint- 
ment. She  hesitatingly  gave  me  her 
address,  and  asked  me  to  call  the  next 
morning.  I  called  early  and  found  her 
waiting  for  me,  ready  dressed  and  look- 
ing like  a  schoolgirl.  She  greeted  me 
merrily,  but  said  at  once:  *  I've 
changed  my  mind  about  the  interview. 
I  shall  never  give  interviews.' 
"  <  Why  ? '  I  had  just  breath  enough 
to  gasp. 

"  c  Duse  is  never  interviewed.  Why 
should  I  be  ? '  said  the  baby. 
"I  thought  she  was  an  impertinent 
child,"  added  the  elderly  interviewer, 
"  but  at  least  she  has  been  consistent.  " 
On  her  trips  abroad  she  has  usually 
traveled  incognito.  Her  name  seldom 
appears  on  the  sailing  list.  She  goes  to 
the  ship  early  and  so  escapes  the  news- 
paper men.  When  she  arrived  recent- 
ly, one  hardy  man  of  the  pencil  and 
notebook  penetrated  her  ship  disguise 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

of  «  Miss  Allen.  "  He  lifted  his  hat 
and  smiling  with  Sherlock  Holmes  sat- 
isfaction, said: 

"What    sort    of  a  passage     did    you 
have,  Miss  Adams?" 
"Miss     Allen"    started    and     looked 
reprovingly   at   the    bold    man.      She 
stopped,  with  one  foot  on  the  carriage 
step,  and  shook  her  finger  at  him. 
"  Run    away,     bad     boy, "    she     said 
gravely,  and   the    carriage    rolled   out 
upon  West  street. 

Intelligent  and  intellectual  as  Maude 
Adams  is,  she  is  not  without  the  super- 
stitions common  to  stage  folk.  The 
writer  has  seen  her  step  quickly  back 
to  the  landing  so  that  she  might  not 
make  one  of  an  ill-fated  trio  on  the 
stairs.  She  has  mascots  without  num- 
ber, one  of  them  a  curious  blue,  heart- 
shaped  stone  which  she  wears  about 
her  neck,  and  she  is  afraid  of  beggars. 
An  old  woman  one  day  asked  her  for  a 
92 


Otto  Sarony  Co. 


AS   PETER   PAN 
(Empire  Theatre,  1905) 


A        BIOGRAPHY 

coin.  The  actress  remembered  that 
there  were  only  bills  in  her  purse,  so 
walked  on  without  replying. 
"  She  cursed  me  horribly,  and  I  have 
never  since  given  anything  to  beggars. 
I  am  afraid  of  them,"  she  said.  The 
money  she  denies  to  beggars  she  spends 
in  less  open  but  grateful  charities. 
Her  mild  asceticism,  untinged  with  aus- 
terity, is  shown  in  the  simplicity  of  her 
dress.  She  cares  little  for  modes  or 
fashion.  For  society  she  cares  not  at 
all.  Her  friends  are  few,  but  they  are 
friends  forever.  It  was  at  the  request 
of  one  of  these  old  friends  that  she 
made  her  only  social  appearance  for 
years.  That  was  at  an  informal  eve- 
ning at  the  home  of  the  late  Major 
Pond  on  Jersey  Heights.  A  friend  of 
many  years  is  Mrs.  Hastings,  wife  of 
the  architect,  and  daughter  of 
E.  C.  Benedict. 

Accountable  for  many  of  her  seeming 
93 


MAUDE        ADAMS 

idiosyncrasies  is  her  singleness  of  aim, 
the  fulfillment  of  her  ambition.  Those 
familiar  with  that  ambition  know  that 
her  career  has  not  yet  settled  into  the 
smooth-running  groove  of  her  hopes, 
that  path  of  least  resistance  of  her 
tastes.  For  Maude  Adams  would  not 
be  the  Bernhardt  of  America  nor  yet 
its  Duse.  Her  ambition  is  to  be  its 
Rejane.  The  French  comedienne  is 
the  actress  she  admires  most.  This 
gravest  of  American  actresses  in  private 
life  would  be  its  gayest  in  public. 
The  vestal  by  day  would  be  the  mer- 
riest of  mummers  at  night.  Again 
the  sunlight  is  playing  upon  the  coif 
of  the  nun. 

She  insisted  upon  leaving  school  for- 
ever when  she  was  fourteen  in  spite  of 
her  principal,  who  urged  her  to  become 
a  teacher,  but  her  real  education  began 
when  she  left  school,  and  she  has  been 
a  student  ever  since.  She  speaks  and 
94 


Otto  Sarony  Co. 

AS   EMPEROR  NAPOLEON   IN   "PETER   PAN" 


A       BIOGRAPHY 

reads  French  fluently ;  she  is  a  fine 
pianist  and  has  a  well-cultivated  con- 
tralto voice.  Her  taste  for  architec- 
ture is  shown  in  incessant  improve- 
ments in  her  town  house  and  at  her 
country  place  on  Long  Island.  She 
swims  and  rides  well,  and  country  life 
is  a  passion  with  her,  and  yet  not  the 
ruling  passion. 

For  life  to  her  is  truly  the  stage,  and 
all  of  her  world  are  players,  and  genius, 
she  has  said,  is  seeing  straight  the 
things  which  concern  us. 


95 


Complete     Casts 

of  — 

Some  of  tne  Earlier  New  York 
Productions   in 

Miss  Maude  Adams 
Took    Part 


H5ifou  Ztyattt 

Broadway  and  30th   Street 
MARCH  5,  1889 


PLAY  BY  CHARLES  HOYT 

THE  CAST: 

Clergyman  ................................  R.    J.    Dillon 

Deacon  ............................  Thos.    Q.    Seabrooke 

City  Lawyer  ...............................  Frank  Lane 

Bank   Cashier  ........................  W.   J.   Humphreys 

Bank  Teller  ..............................  Hart  Conway 

Bank   President  .........................  T.  J.   Herndon 

Country    Boy  ..........................  Eugene    Canfield 

Village    Doctor  ...........................  Jesse    Jenkins 

Village   Fiddler  ............................  Percy   Gaunt 

Schoolma'am  ...............................  Isabelle   Coe 

Minister's  Sister  .........................  Maude  Adamg 

Old  Maid  ................................  Annie  Adams 

Widow    ...................................  Marie   Uart 

Soprano  of  the  Choir  .......................  Elvia  Croix 

Village    Maiden  ..........................  Beth    Bedford 

Help   .....................................  Bessie  Weyl 


99 


proctor's!  {Etontt^ttjirD  & 

SEPTEMBER   8,   1890 

9LII  t&e  Comforts  of  f)ome 

COMEDY  BY  WILLIAM  GILLETTE 

THE  CAST: 

Alfred   Hastings Henry    Miller 

Tom   McDow J.    C.    Buckstone 

Theo.   Bender M.  A.   Kennedy 

Josephine    Bender Ida    Vernon 

Evangeline    Bender Maude  Adams 

Robert   Pettibone T.    M.    Hunter 

Rosabelle    Pettibone Mercedes    Malarini 

Emily    Pettibone Marie    Greenwald 

Christopher    Dabney Tom    Robinson 

Judson    Langhorn Lewis    Baker 

Fifi   Oritanski Maud  Haslam 

Augustus   McSnath T.   C.   Valentine 

Victor    Smythe J.    B.    Hollis 

Thompson    • E.    Mackey 

Katy    Winona    Shannon 

Gretchen    Kate   Stevens 

Bailiff..,  J.     McCullough 


ICO 


Hall 


AS    AMANDA   IN    "'OP    O'    ME    THUMB" 
(Empire  Theatre,  1905) 


JjOroctor's;  (Etocntp  tljirfc  &>t. 

OCTOBER  21,  1890 


Jflrn  anti 

PLAY  BY  H.  C.  DEMILLE  AND  DAVID  BELASCO 

THE  CAST: 
Israel    Cohen  ....................  Frederick   de   Belleville 

Wm.    Prescott  ..........................  William    Morris 

Edwin    Seabury  .........................  Orrin    Johnson 

Calvin    Stedman  .........................  R.   A.    Roberts 

Lyman  H.   Webb  .........................  Henry  Talbot 

Stephen    Rodman  ......................  Frank    Mordaunt 

Zachary  T.  Kip  ........................  M.  A.  Kennedy 

"Dick"   Armstrong  .....................  T.    C.   Valentine 

Sam   Delafield  .........................  J.    C.    Buckstone 

Arnold   Kirke  .........................  Emmett   Corrigan 

Messenger  ........................  Master    Louis   Haines 

Agnes    Rodman  .....................  Sydney    Armstrong 

Mrs.  Kate  Delafield  .......................  Odette  Tyler 

Margery   Knox  ...........................  Etta   Hawkins 

Mrs.   Jane  Prescott  .......................  Annie   Adams 

Mrs.    Kirke  ...........................  Lillian    Chantore 

Pendleton  ..............................  C.   Leslie  Allen 

Reynolds  ................................  W.  H.  Tillard 

Bergman    ...............  ...............  Arthur   Hayden 

Wayne    ................................  Edgar    Mackay 

Crawford  ............................  E.   J.    McCullough 

John    ................................  Richard   Marlowe 

Dora    ..................................  Maude  Adam* 

Lucy    ................................  Winona   Shannon 

Julia    ..................................  Gladys    Eurelle 


101 


jproctor'0  (Etonu^tljirt)  &>t.  (ETftratrr 

NOVEMBER  16,  1891 

<&&e  Lost  flarafctee 

PLAY  BY  HENRY  C.  DEMILLE 

THE  CAST: 

Andrew  Knowlton Frank   Mordaunt 

Ralph   Standish Orrin  Johnson 

Billy  Hopkins J.  C.  Buckstone 

Mrs.    Knowlton Annie   Adams 

Margaret   Knowlton Sydney  Armstrong 

Reuben    Warner W.    Morris 

Bob   Appleton Cyril    Scott 

Fletcher C.    Leslie    Allen 

Joe    Barrett H.    Talbot 

Schwartz    Thos.    Oberle 

Benzil    Emmett    Corrigan 

Hyatt    Chas.   Matlack 

Polly   Fletcher Odette   Tyler 

Julia    May    Croxton 

Nell    Maude  Adams 

Kate    Bijou    Fernandez 

Cinders    .  Etta    Hawkins 


102 


DOaimer'0  theatre  (^allacfe'0) 

Broadway  and  30th   Street 
OCTOBER  8,   1892 


PLAY  BY  ALEXANDER  BISSON  AND  ALBERT  CARRE 

THE  CAST: 

Paul   Blondet  ...............................  John    Drew 

Joseph    Poulard  ........................  Harry    Harward 

Louis    Martinet  .........................  Harold    Russell 

M.   Bergomat  ...........................  C   Leslie  Allen 

Casimir  ...............................  Frank    E.    Lamb 

Suzanne    Blondet  ........................  Maude  Adam* 

Mme.    Poulard  ......................  Virginia    Buchanan 

Mme.    Bergomat  ..........................  Annie   Adams 

Rose    .................................  Lillian    Florence 


103 


pahner'0 

Broadway   and   30th    Street 
FEBRUARY  5,  1894 

ft&e  iSttttetfltea 

BY  HENRY  GUY  CARLETON 

THE  CAST: 

Frederick    Ossian John    Drew 

Andrew    Strong Lewis    Baker 

Hiram    Green Harry    Harwood 

Barrington    Arthur    Byron 

Nathaniel   Bilser Leslie  Allen 

Coddle Frank    E.    Lamb 

Mrs.    Ossian Annie    Adams 

Suzanne    Elise Olive    May 

Mrs.   Beverly   Stuart-Dodge Kate   Meek 

Miriam    .  . .  Maude  Adams 


104 


Broadway   and   40th    Street 
SEPTEMBER  11,  1895 


BY  R.   C.  CARTON 

THE  CAST: 

Clivebrooke    ...............................  John    Drew 

Earl  of  Sarum  ..........................  C.  Leslie  Allen 

Chas.    Teviot  ............................  Arthur    Byron 

John     Stradebroke  ......................  Guido    Marburg 

Stoach    ...............................  Harry    Harwood 

Piers    Bussey  .........................  Frederick    Strong 

Ireson    ...................................  Lewis  Baker 

Matthew   Keber  ..........................  J.    E.    Dodson 

Body    ..................................  Robert    Cotton 

Mims    ..............................  Joseph   Humphreys 

Bence  .................................  Frank    E.    Lamb 

Gussie    ..................................  Agnes   Miller 

Kate   Fennell  ...........................  Elsie   de  Wolfe 

Lady    Bellenden  ............................  Kate    Meek 

Jessie    Keber  ............................  Maude  Adams 


105 


(Empire  £tjeatre 

Broadway  and  40th   Street 
SEPTEMBER  23,  1895 

Smpnrtent  poting  Couple 

BY  HENRY  GUY  CARLETON 

THE  CAST: 

Jeanette    Anna    Belmont 

Katherine Ethel    Barrymore 

Lucy    Annie  Adams 

Mrs.    Dunbar Virginia   Buchanan 

Marion  Maude  Adams 

John    Annesley John    Drew 

Tobin    Harry  Harwood 

Professor   Elia Leslie   Allen 

Nicholas   Goltry Lewis   Baker 

Spencer    Arthur   Byron 

Langdon    Endicott Herbert    Ayling 

Hawkins   .  Frank  Lamb 


106 


Otto  Saronv  Co. 


A    RECENT    PRIVATE    PORTRAIT 


Cftnptrr  £ljeatre 

Broadway   and   40th   Street 
OCTOBER  7,  1895 


By  MADELEINE   LUCETTE  RYLEY 

THE  CAST: 

Christopher   Colt,   Jr  ........................  John   Drew 

Christopher   Colt,    Sr  ...................  Harry   Harwood 

Bert  Bellaby  ..............................  Lewis   Baker 

Hedway    .................................  Leslie    Allen 

Simpson   ................................  Arthur   Byron 

Glibb    .................................  Herbert   Ayling 

Job    ................................  Joseph  Humphreys 

Whimper    ................................  Frank   Lamb 

Mrs.   Glibb  .............................  Elsie  de  Wolfe 

Mrs.   Colt  ...............................  Anna  Belmont 

Dora    .  .  Maude  Adam* 


107 


Cftnpire 

Broadway   and   40th   Street 
AUGUST  31,  1896 


By  Louis  N.  PARKER  AND  MURRAY  CARSON 

THE  CAST: 

Jasper    ....................................  John   Drew 

Jog-Ram  ............................  Daniel   H.   Harkins 

Cruickshank    ..........................  Harry    Harwood 

William    Westford  .......................  Arthur    Byron 

George   Menifie  ......................  Joseph   Humphreys 

Abraham    ................................  Frank    Lamb 

Stilt  Walker  ............................  Charles   Gibson 

Mrs.    Cruickshank  ...................  Mrs.   Annie  Adams 

Mrs.    Menifie  ................................  Mrs.    King 

Priscilla    .............................  Ethel    Barrymore 

Dorothy   ...............................    Maude  Adams 


108 


C-mpirr 

Broadway  and   40th   Street 
SEPTEMBER  27,   1897 

C&e  little  iKimater 

PLAY  BY  J.  M.  BARRIE 

THE  CAST: 

Gavin    Dishart Robert    Edeson 

I  ord    Rintoul Eugene    Jepson 

Captain    Halliwell Guy    Standing 

Lady    Babbie Maude  Adams 

Felice    Margaret  Gordon 

Twaits    Frederick    Spencer 

Thomas   Whamond William   H.    Thompson 

Bow  Dow George  Fawcett 

Micah    Dow Jessie    Mackaye 

Snecky    Hobart Wallace    Jackson 

Andrew   Mealmaker R.   Peyton   Carter 

Silva  Tosh Norman   Campbell 

Sergeant    Davidson Wilfred    Buckland 

Joe    Cruickshanks Thomas   Valentine 

Nannie   Webster Jane  Ten   Eyck 

Jean Nell    Stone   Fulton 


THIS  BOOK  IS  DUE  ON  THE  LAST  DATE 
STAMPED  BELOW 

AN  INITIAL  FINE  OP  25  CENTS 

WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
THIS  BOOK  ON  THE  DATE  DUE.  THE  PENALTY 
WILL  INCREASE  TO  SO  CENTS  ON  THE  FOURTH 
DAY  AND  TO  $1.OO  ON  THE  SEVENTH  DAY 
OVERDUE. 


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U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


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